


For Glory

by UninspiredPoet



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Badass Elf Ladies, Blood and Violence, Eventual Smut, F/F, Flashbacks, Graphic Violence, I wasn't even drunk when I wrote this, Major Character Injury, Major Character Undeath, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Character Death, Orcs are Romans, Partners to Lovers, Psychological Trauma, Slavery, Spartacus AU, This gonna be wild yall, Time Skips, True Horde Wins AU, What a crack fest, crackfic, graphic depictions of death, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-03-20 01:26:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18982372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UninspiredPoet/pseuds/UninspiredPoet
Summary: Liadrin is the crowd favorite. The Champion. Undefeated in the pit. All she knows now is efficient, ruthless killing. Atonement is out of her reach. Salvation is but a memory. Will Valeera, the newcomer, light a spark that has long been dormant within her? Or will she, too, get lost in the glory of the ring?((Disclaimer: My not-for-profit transformative work is only published by me on Archive of Our Own. I do not give my consent or authorization for it to be reproduced or displayed on any third-party websites or apps.))





	1. The Favorite

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

Liadrin looked up slowly from her book at the sound of scuffling outside her rooms. Well. ‘Rooms’ was quite generous, really. Her accommodations were nice enough. Especially when one took those of the other gladiators into account. Oh, but she’d worked for this. She’d worked for the book she was placing beside herself on the bed. The bed, too. A bed that had once been a mere padded roll in a dirt cell.

Even the rug beneath her feet as she stood to check on the sounds outside had been hard earned by her own blood. Her own sweat. One might even think this was a normal set of rooms in a normal home if it weren’t for the door. For the bars she moved towards to look out of. 

“Get back, Liadrin.” Her eyes met those of the orc outside in response to his deep, guttural voice. 

“Why would I do that, Galdrik?” She asked as a slight smirk quirked the corner of her lips. He grunted at her in response and slammed a hand against the bars of her door - though she was unmoved by the rattle of them. Until he moved what he’d been tugging along into her view. 

A rather beautiful...rather irritated Blood Elf. 

“This is for you. Too much trouble with the others. It’s you or the pit at this point. Your choice.” 

A flash of fel-green eyes met her own and she returned the gaze. There was blood in her hair. Bruising along one of her cheeks. 

“She looks like she’s already been there.” Liadrin replied - her smirk widening slightly at the low chuckle that came from the other woman in response to her jabbing at the guard. A chuckle that turned into a huff of discomfort as he twisted her bound arms behind her. 

“Enough. I’m moving.” There was warning in her tone - as though she had any power in her current state. Caged like some animal. She took a few steps back, then - keeping her arms at her sides lest she insight the guard currently unlocking her door any further. 

“Temporary.” He grunted as he shoved the Blood Elf in next to Liadrin and looked her over with far too appreciative a gaze. “A reward, perhaps. For your performance last night with the wyvern. A little company from a pretty woman. Better than you deserve, really. Once we have a suitable room for her, she’ll be out of your hair if you don’t want her here.” 

“And my dinner?” Liadrin asked with a quirk of her brow as she approached him only to find the door slammed shut in her face. 

“Spoiled gladiator. Better than you deserve.” He grumbled as he locked her cell back from outside. 

Liadrin listened to him muttering as he retreated down the hallway. Muttering about murderers with egos wanting their dinner early. 

“Can you take these off?” 

Liadrin turned her attention to the young woman still standing behind her and looked down at the leather cuffs linking her wrists together. “Leather.” Liadrin remarked idly, walking over to her and reaching for the buckles. She made quick work of them and examined the cuffs before tossing them aside. “You must be good out there. Took me a year to graduate from rope. What’s your name?”

“Sanguinar.” The woman responded carefully, rubbing at her bruised wrists and then reaching up to pull her mess of hair from her face with a wince. 

“That’s a last name.” Liadrin replied as she moved across the room towards a glass pitcher of water on the one piece of furniture aside from her bed that she could call her own. A table and a chair. Certainly not an impressive piece of woodwork...but it did the job. 

“Valeera. You got a name, too?” 

Liadrin walked over to her, then, and passed the glass of water she’d poured her over. “Liadrin. Sit down. Let me look at you.”

Valeera eyed the older woman warily - took in the scars that littered her arms and the surprisingly nice cut of the sleeveless shirt she was wearing. Even her boots were decent enough. “Look at me for what?” She asked as she stopped near the edge of the mattress Liadrin had gestured towards. 

Liadrin sighed quietly in response and walked over to her, pushing her down onto the edge of it and reaching up to run her thumb across the cut that was splitting the fine line of her brow. “Not for whatever you and that orc were thinking.” She responded before murmuring something under her breath that Valeera couldn’t quite make out. At least until she felt the pain in her face and the pounding in her head begin to subside. 

“The hell are you doing?” Valeera asked in a voice that bordered between confusion and agitation.

Liadrin looked over her shoulder as she finished what she was doing - her ears shifting continually to listen for footsteps. “Healing you. What’s your story?” 

Valeera nearly slumped forward when Liadrin’s hand left her face. It was the most relief she’d felt in days. Her body still ached, sure, but with her head clear...she could finally think. She could finally really breathe. 

“You shouldn’t do that.” Valeera said quietly in protest, though she wouldn’t have traded the result for just about anything right then. Anything aside from the first sip she took of the cleanest water she’d had in recent memory. 

“Mm. It’ll be alright just this once.” Liadrin moved away, then, and took a seat at her little table as she waited for Valeera to decide whether or not she was going to answer her. So much time passed as the other woman drank down the entirety of her water that Liadrin was surprised when she actually did. 

“Finished my training. Escaped on my way here. Got caught. They put me in the pit this morning. Apparently, they don’t like escape artists very much.”

“You look like more a fighter than an escape artist to me.” Liadrin replied, oddly enough, without looking at her. She’d seen enough to know she was right. “So that would make you…”

“A dimachaerus.” Valeera eyed Liadrin from across the room. She sized her up better than she had previously. She was strong. Or at least she looked it. Unusually so for an elf. 

“And you? Aside from a likely favorite judging by your clothes and this room, what are you?” 

“Murmillo.” Liadrin leaned back in her chair and turned her attention back to Valeera. “Undefeated Champion.” 

“Champion.” Valeera replied thoughtfully as she pushed down against the mattress to test its softness. “A Champion without her freedom. You must have done something terrible to land yourself in such a predicament.” 

“Perhaps I did. I never said I didn’t deserve to be here. And you. What did you do? You are far too beautiful to be a Gladiator. It’s a shame that you’re here.” 

Valeera snorted almost derisively and laid back on Liadrin’s bed. The look of shock at how good it felt wasn’t lost on Liadrin - she just chose not to acknowledge it. “I stole a necklace.” She responded - her tone bordering on venomous. 

Liadrin shook her head softly and sighed. “Hell of a reason.” She muttered - the disgust in her voice causing Valeera to look over at her. 

“Where’d you train?” Liadrin asked as she stood and walked over to retrieve Valeera’s empty glass. 

“Ring of Valor. You?” 

Liadrin looked at her for a moment before sitting the glass aside, mulling over that question and how she could possibly answer it without getting into anything serious. “I didn’t need to train.” 

Before Valeera could ask anything else, Liadrin turned towards the door and made her way towards it, reaching out past the bars and waving down a nearby guard. “Hey.” 

“Champion.” A voice responded from the hallway - one that held a strange mixture of respect and agitation. 

“Make sure they bring enough dinner for two. And a wash basin. While you’re at it, tell Galdrik he should’ve let her clean up first. I don’t care if he likes his women dirty, I don’t.” 

“No problem.” The voice responded in amusement. It seemed he wasn’t a fan of the head guard, either. 

“Awfully presumptuous of you.” Valeera muttered from the bed as she moved to get up from it. 

“Rest. Don’t flatter yourself. You do what you need to do around here to survive, that’s all. You talk how you need to talk. This is how I’m going to get you what you need until you learn how to get it for yourself. Or until you become popular out there in the pit.” 

Valeera didn’t lay back down. Not all the way, at least. She pulled the rather flat pillows at the head of Liadrin’s bed towards herself and propped them up against the wall so she could lean back against them. “Mind telling me why it is that you care, exactly?”

“Honestly? It’s easier to stay alive in pairs. If they put us in the pit together and it goes well, there’s a real chance that that’s what this will be. Besides, I can’t heal the blood off of you and I can smell it from here. I prefer to keep that smell out of this room whenever possible.” 

“Weak stomach? Strange for a Champion.” 

Liadrin chuckled and moved to plop down on the edge of the bed - staying on the opposite end of it from the other woman. “Not by any means. I’ve gutted more opponents than I can recall and beheaded even more, still. This, though. This is the only place where that smell _isn’t_.”

The intrusion of the door unlocking for dinner was a welcome one. Nearly as welcome as the trays that were carried through it. Roast meat. Fresh bread. A heavy meal. One that meant neither of them would be fighting tomorrow. Along with a steaming basin of water that smelled faintly of herbs meant to soothe. 

“It was brought to my attention I shouldn’t have delivered you a woman who still had the filth of combat on her.” 

Liadrin regarded Galdrik with a faint raise of her chin but said nothing. 

“Come, now, Liadrin. You spit in the face of our generosity. She’s pretty enough. This is a fine meal. Fit for kings. Your petulance is misplaced and unwarranted.” 

Liadrin’s eyes burned into the orc’s. “Generosity. I make this colosseum more gold than it can handle. You spend little of it on my upkeep. My furnishings, my food, my rooms. You bring me street filth that I refuse to touch for years and then you bring this. You bring a real fighter and present her to me like a piece of meat under false pretenses. Leave me, Galdrik. And leave her here.”

He grunted and did little to hide how nonplussed he was with her sudden and unexpected show of power. Yet, prisoner though she was, there was little he could do in response. She was easily the most protected of any of them. Even him. Despite the bars that usually separated them. 

Valeera hung back. She observed the way Liadrin behaved. The way she stood squarely in front of the wall of an orc she’d been speaking to like he was a mere child. The way he did absolutely nothing about it. She decided in that moment - that whatever this was to be - there were worse situations she could have been placed into. 

Once they were alone, the visible way in which Liadrin had bristled calmed gradually. In fact, the expression she turned to Valeera was almost soft. “Get washed up so we can eat.” Her voice, even, was quieter now. 

Liadrin found no joy in balking against the chains that bound her. Even if they were now mostly literal. Confrontations like the one that had just happened were merely a reminder of how truly powerless she was. 

Valeera decided it might be best to remain quiet for a while. At least while she stripped quickly and began scrubbing herself clean. She was almost surprised to find Liadrin looking away. She couldn’t help her curiosity getting the better of her in response. “How long have you been here? How long have they had you?” 

“Ten years.” Liadrin responded, beginning to pile a plate of food relatively high for her unexpected guest. 

“And you’re telling me you haven’t touched any of the girls they bring you?” 

Liadrin paused. She hazzarded a glance in Valeera’s direction - allowed herself to see the outlines of the curves of her body before she turned away again. “No. I haven’t. I’m not...I’m not some prized stallion. I know why they do it. Believe me, I know why they do it. But I don’t need that to fight. Not anymore. I don’t need that to be who I am.” 

While Liadrin had been speaking, Valeera had finished washing and moved to a small shelf of clothing - lifting various items before she found a shirt that might fit her along with some loose, surprisingly soft pants. 

“Perhaps they think it will make you even better.” She suggested as she reached for the plate Liadrin handed her. “It would be a win-win for them, really. I’m sure they get the girls for free. It’d give you a little something extra to fight for. Put a little pep in your step.” 

Valeera carried her food over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. She didn’t bother with manners. She was fucking starving. They’d kept her that way for two days, now - and had her fight on top of it. It was all she could do to stop just short of shoveling food into her mouth with the healthy portion of bread Liadrin had placed on her plate. 

“All I care about now is being the best.” Liadrin responded as she took her usual seat at her table and began eating, herself. Albeit a touch more slowly than Valeera was. “Everything else - everything from before - is simply a distraction. If you’re the best, you live. If you aren’t, you’re expendable.”

“I suppose we shouldn’t share this bed, then.” Valeera commented idly as she popped the last bite of bread into her mouth. 

“I don’t have a problem sharing a bed with you. If we end up being paired you won’t do me any good if you’re stiff from sleeping on a matt on the floor or whatever cot they manage to drag to my room for you.” 

 

“Have it your way. Ten years is a long time.” Valeera carried her plate over to the table now that it was empty and placed it next to Liadrin’s. “It’s only been about a month for me and you look like more of a feast than that dinner was.” 

Liadrin tensed almost visibly at that. The resulting chuckle that came from Valeera didn’t help much. 

“Relax.” Valeera headed back to the bed, then and climbed into it - making sure she took up very little of the rather impressive expanse of it. “I wouldn’t fuck you unless you wanted me to.” Liadrin could feel Valeera’s eyes on her - and her own turned slowly to meet the other woman’s gaze. 

“Sorry. You look like you’d be the fucker. I should have been more specific, I guess.” 

Liadrin couldn’t even begin to understand how Valeera seemed so...well, she didn’t know if she necessarily seemed ‘okay’ with this. She just seemed...like it was just another day. Like they couldn’t be summoned from this room at any moment and have to put on the next show that would save their lives. And the next. And the next.

“Very observant of you.” Liadrin muttered as she padded across the floor to the bed, hesitating at the edge of it. But it was getting dark. And without candles, there was little else to do but rest. 

As though Valeera sensed her distress, she sighed and turned over so that she was facing the wall with one of the two pillows beneath her head. “Don’t stress it too much, Liadrin. I’m sure I’ll be dead soon, anyway.” 

“You won’t.” Liadrin responded as though it were a commonly known fact. 

“Oh?” Valeera asked - her question directed at the wall instead of the woman who was getting comfortable behind her. 

“I’m sure you’re good already to have wound up here. But I’ll make you better. I’ll make you undefeatable.”

“Why?” Valeera asked - still curious as to why Liadrin cared when no one else ever had. 

“You’re a little funny. You smell a lot better now that you’re clean. Wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have someone to talk to that I’m not going to eventually kill.” 

“You should write poetry in your spare time.” Valeera muttered before turning her face against the pillow with a heavy sigh. Something about having Liadrin at her back allowed her to relax - just a little. Enough that she knew she’d at least sleep tonight and that was something. It really was. 

“It would be awful.” Liadrin replied with a furrow of her brows as she turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. 

“That was the joke.”


	2. The Teeth

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

“We can’t keep feeding our people to this beast, Lor’themar. We simply can’t. We are running. Out.” Liadrin’s ears were pressed back tightly. Her eyes were blazing. She was furious. Exhausted. Done. Since the Orcs had succeeded in their conquest of Azeroth - since their true wishes and machinations had come to light - they had all become inferior. Unnecessary. Fodder. Fodder to throw into the front lines of their few remaining enemies. Fodder to further dissolve the Alliance. 

A handful of years. That was all it had taken for everything to fall apart. That was all it had taken for the pledging of their loyalty to slowly morph into something darker. A shadow that loomed over them every single day of their lives. Gradually, their power over their own governments had been stripped. Gradually, it was no longer even their own government. Simple transgressions had become punishable offenses. Then, eventually, that punishment had become enslavement. For even the smallest wrongs. 

The Orcs had allowed them to keep their presence in this world for as long as it served them a purpose. Now that opposition was nearly non-existent, that purpose just wasn’t there anymore. 

“We don’t have a _choice_ , Liadrin.” Lor’themar forced out between gritted teeth. “What do you suggest we do?” Lor’themar stood and Liadrin looked into his eyes. She measured what she saw there. Then, she realized that his question was genuine. That he _wanted_ her to know the answer. 

She didn’t. Not really. Her own stoniness faded somewhat. She looked lost for a moment. On top of the exhaustion - there was hunger. Hunger from months of cut rations. Loneliness. A loneliness that stemmed from the fact that no one had the time...or the hope left for any real human connection. 

“We fight.” She whispered, her eyes falling from her long-time friend’s. 

“We die, you mean.” Lor’themar’s voice was a strikingly soft murmur in response. 

“Perhaps.” Liadrin leaned over the edge of his desk - her gloved hands pressing against the top of it as her head hung between her plate-armored shoulders. Golden plate that had once gleamed beautifully in the sunlight but was now dull and battered. “Perhaps we will die.” Her attention turned, then, to the other officers that had gathered with them. Other members of the Blood Knights that the Orcs thought disbanded years ago. “But what if we bought peace for our people with our lives? What if we convinced the True Horde that we are not worth their time and losses?”

For the first time in months and months - she saw hope in some of the eyes that looked at her. Hope that she nearly felt begin to flare within herself. Until she heard the shouting outside. Shouting that sounded, soon enough, like it was choked with blood. She drew her sword with wild eyes and turned towards the door as she heard the sound her unsheathing had made echoed back to her by every Knight in the room. “Formation!” She shouted in response to the first kick against the doors that separated them from whoever was coming. 

The sounds of movement at her back became one, suddenly. One unit. One shift into stances that refused to be shaken. 

The second kick was what did it. What send the doors flying into the room in a haze of wood dust and splinters that the sunlight filtering in from outside caught in its contrastingly gentle wake. 

“Well, well. I had thought the Blood Rats a thing of the past.” 

“Hellscream.” Liadrin muttered darkly as her eyes darted from Garrosh to the handful of Orcs escorting him. 

“Lower your weapons, Elven filth.” He ground out before spitting on the ground between himself and Liadrin. “My army is poised to sack Silvermoon. We will spare _no one_ \- of that you have my word.” 

That statement physically shook Liadrin in a way that she couldn’t hide. She wasn’t the only one. They all paused. They all awaited her orders. 

“You expect me to believe you’ve positioned an entire army around our city without my knowledge?” There was strength in her own voice that even she hadn’t expected in that moment. 

Garrosh smirked. “What have you left that could have possibly stopped us?” He walked closer, then. He didn’t even bother arming himself as his men behind him shoved the doors the rest of the way open to reveal Orcen soldiers falling to ranks in the streets outside. 

It was that sight that had Liadrin lowering her sword as her face fell and her heart lept into her throat. “Was this your plan, then?” She whispered - no longer bothering with the facade. “How long have you waited for this moment?” 

“For what moment?” He asked as he lowered his face to be even with hers. Almost. Just slightly higher. “To show your people what you look like on your knees before me?” 

She bared her fangs without thinking. She raised her sword hand like it was a reflex because it was only to snap her attention to the side as an axe buried itself in the chest of the nearest Knight. “No.” Liadrin breathed as the woman fell to her knees and clutched at her chest as blood began seeping through her armor. 

“Now it’s your turn.” Garrosh sneered as he reached up and grabbed the hair at the back of her head - pulling her forward and in front of himself. “The sword. Or the next axe finds the throat of one of your people’s _welps_.” 

Liadrin’s sword clattered to the ground almost immediately. She didn’t feel the pain, really, of her scalp screaming in protest against the weight of her body and her armor while she was forced out into the courtyard outside along with the Blood Knight officers behind her. 

The first wince didn’t come until he lifted her from her feet for all to see. All those that were being forced to gather. To watch. Though there was a conspicuously empty circle in the middle of the courtyard. 

“This!” Garrosh began - forcing Liadrin forward until she was dangling above the street in front of them over the edge of the stares. It was so quiet that the scrape of her boots against the cobbled stone was almost loud somehow. “Is why you do not _plot_. Why you do not _meddle_ in things that no longer concern you!” 

Liadrin didn’t make the first move to struggle. Not untl she noticed exactly who was being pushed into the middle of the circle. Blood Knights. ...All of them. Every. Last. One. “No.” She ground out through gritted teeth. “No.” 

“Then _kneel_.” Garrosh spat as he began to lower her to the ground. The moment he dropped her, her knees met the stone beneath her feet and the orcs that had been corraling her Knights looked up to Garrosh for his response. Liadrin thought she knew pain. Liadrin thought she knew loss. She had been so fucking wrong. 

“Bind her. See that she doesn’t get up.” Garrosh muttered to those near him before gesturing to his men below behind Liadrin’s back. 

She felt hands tugging her armor from her shoulders without bothering to unbuckle it. Ripping her tabard from her chest. 

When the first head of the first Blood Knight fell against the stone of the courtyard she pulled against her captors - freeing her wrists and making it half a step before she felt a crack of wood across her back. A crack that nearly crippled her. Despite the sudden pain - excruciating as it was - she was forced back to the top of the stairs. Back onto her knees. 

“Stop!” The word tore from her throat in a near-wail before she knew it was coming. Another thump. Cries from those being forced to watch. “Stop! I…” She hunched forward as more orcs got involved in the beheadings. Even that wasn’t a reprieve she would be allowed. Her head was lifted. Again. And again. And each time the tug at her hair was accompanied with another blow. A kick. A punch. It didn’t seem to matter. Until the courtyard was red with rivers of Elven blood. Until it was only her and the officers behind her that remained of her order. She could hear Lor’themar wheezing behind her - though she didn’t know if it was emotion or physical distress that had done it. She didn’t know anything right then.

Only then did Garrosh return - standing beside the men that were holding her on her knees as her bruised and battered body shook and tensed uncontrollably. 

“These Blood Knights of yours…” He spat the words at the citizens of Silvermoon like they were poison he was ridding his own mouth of. “These...Officers. They have earned themselves a far worse fate than a quick death. They are for the Arena. Let this be a lesson to you all.” 

Liadrin’s blood-spattered face was heavily streaked with the tears that had been slipping down it - tears that had been utterly beyond her control as she looked on helplessly at the devastation on the faces of her people - people that looked to their would-be savior bound and on her knees at the feet of Garrosh Hellscream.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liadrin’s eyes snapped open in the darkness of her room. Her heart hammered in her chest like that of a hunted hare. She was cold. Cold from the sweat that had soaked into her clothing and even the blanket beneath her body. 

She could feel Valeera looking at her...yet she ignored it. Instead, she sat up slowly and moved from the bed to make her way towards their water. She didn’t chug it like she might have once - long ago. When the nightmares had first started. When they’d been fresh and the trauma hadn’t yet settled deeply enough within the paths it had carved through her body to be manageable. Nor did she cry. She simply looked out the single little barred window into the blackness outside as she placed her half-finished glass down on the table.

“What happened?” Valeera asked quietly from the bed as Liadrin turned to glance at her. 

“I woke up.” Liadrin responded simply, moving to sit in the lone chair in the room with her eyes resting on her own hands in her lap. 

Valeera propped herself up in the bed through the grogginess of sleep and looked down when her hands touched wet sheets where Liadrin’s back had been only moments earlier. The younger woman swallowed thickly as she brushed her fingertips over the damp cloth and then sat up all the way. She’d heard Liadrin’s quick, shallow breaths over the past hour or so - the breaths that had first woken her up. She’d felt the mattress shifting as she’d tensed in seemingly endless waves. Yet the woman hadn’t uttered a single sound in her sleep. Hadn’t shed a single tear or let slip a single whimper. 

“Come here.” Valeera whispered, gesturing towards the bed beside herself. “I’ll help you sleep.” 

Liadrin looked at Valeera, then. Hard. She even stood and wandered over towards the edge of the bed. 

Valeera didn’t hesitate. She moved immediately to the side of the mattress and reached for Liadrin - touching the front of her leggings - stroking down her thighs towards her knees. 

“You meant you’ll let me fuck you.” Liadrin breathed, reaching for Valeera’s hands when they found the hem of her shirt. 

Valeera’s eyes shut for a moment when Liadrin stopped her before they opened again and lifted to meet the other woman’s. “Yeah.” She clenched her jaw when she twisted her wrists slightly in Liadrin’s grip and it only tightened around them. “As hard as you want. For as long as you want.” 

“Go to sleep.” Liadrin took a step back when she spoke and Valeera watched and listened carefully. The last thing Liadrin’s body language suggested was that she didn’t need this. She was tense. Every inch of her. Her chest was rising and falling quickly. She’d even released a shuddering breath before turning to move back to her table. 

Valeera pushed herself back towards the wall and leaned against it once it was clear Liadrin wasn’t going to return. “I didn’t mean to make it worse.” 

“You didn’t.” Liadrin didn’t speak like she was attempting to reassure her. She just...spoke. In fact - Valeera had begun to notice there was rarely any real emotion in the other woman’s tone. 

Valeera wasn’t really used to not knowing what to do. But right then...she had absolutely no fucking idea. It was easier to just lay back down and turn to face the wall again. It was easier to force her eyes shut and pretend sleep was going to take her. 

It didn’t, though. She was too focused on the quiet noises Liadrin made as she traced the wood grain of her table with her fingertips. As she moved across the room to find her book only to discover it was too dark, yet, to read. 

“I’m coming to bed.” Liadrin finally said after what must have been at least an hour. “I’m not going to fuck you.” 

“Alright.” Valeera responded into the wall - not sure exactly how Liadrin knew she wasn’t sleeping. She’d been breathing so evenly for so long she couldn’t fathom how the older woman had known. 

 

Valeera wondered, though, if Liadrin had meant that. There was something about the way the mattress shifted so slowly. About the feeling of Liadrin’s presence - so strangely heavy - that caused her to open her eyes and try to catch a glimpse of her in the corner of her vision. 

Liadrin was looking at her in the dark of the room. She wasn’t quite laying - nor was she sitting. Something in between. Something stiff and uncomfortable. There was something about all of it, really, that had Valeera turning onto her back and looking up silently. 

God, this woman must have been someone. Really someone - to resist her like this. After going so long without touching...without being touched. Someone strong. Someone altogether different than who she was, now. 

“Why?” Valeera asked quietly - asked at that little sliver of whoever that person might have been. However long ago.

Liadrin swallowed thickly. Her gaze shifted quickly along the curves of Valeera’s body as the ache she felt settled more deeply into her own. 

“Sleep.” Liadrin’s voice was strangely soft. Out of place, almost - as she laid down on her stomach with her head facing away from Valeera so she could no longer see her. “I apologize for having woken you. You need your rest for tomorrow.”

Valeera’s brow furrowed at the combination of thoughts she had to process, then. The thought of needing her rest...the sudden shift in Liadrin’s demeanor. Her refusal to touch her though she clearly wanted to. Though she was fairly certain she wasn’t all that likely to get an answer out of the other woman for most of what she was curious about. She settled on what Liadrin was most likely comfortable with. 

“What’s tomorrow?” 

“Training.” Liadrin replied simply. “And I don’t have long to get you ready to fight with me.”

“I can fight.” Valeera responded immediately - adamantly. 

“Not like this.” Liadrin turned her face towards her pillow for a moment and breathed in deeply before she released that breath and at least some of the tension that was plaguing her along with it. “And not with me at your side.” 

“What will be so different? About having you by my side, I mean? About all of it?”

“You won’t be fighting animals, anymore. I only ever do it for show, now. When there isn’t a worthy opponent for me but the crowd still wants to see me. But that’s a solo act. You’ll be fighting Gladiators, now. Some like us...some...larger. Stronger. It will be your job to not allow them to touch you. To stay far enough away until you spot a weakness.” 

“And what will your job be?” 

“To take every hit that you can’t.” 

“You aren’t a shield. You are flesh and bone. No matter what you might think.” 

“But I am.” Liadrin responded as though that should have been obvious from the start. “A shield with teeth.” 

“And what am I?” Valeera asked curiously - though sleep was already threatening to reclaim her now that the tension in the room had dissipated. 

“The teeth.”


	3. Doctore

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

The crack of the whip was as deafening as the sun was blinding. The steely gaze of its wielder enough to intimidate even the strongest among them. Save Liadrin, perhaps. Most days, anyway.

“Fall in line with the rest of the recruits, Blood Elf.” Her gravelly voice held no sympathy for Valeera - who had followed Liadrin closely into the ring. No pity. No room for argument. Nor did Liadrin move to give her any. Valeera moved from her side quickly to stand next to a handful of trolls that towered over her and looked considerably more nervous.

“Is this your new pet, then?” Maiev asked as she cut her gaze in Liadrin’s direction while the Gladiator dusted her hands with the fine sand of the training ring of their ludus. 

“No, Doctore.” Liadrin responded simply as she turned away. “I don't believe in such things.”

Maiev smirked as she wound her whip back into a loose set of loops that she held comfortably in one hand. “Looks more like a shadow to me.” Her eyes landed on Valeera, then. “Is that what you are? A shadow? Following at heels? Making no move of your own? All shadows are the same, you know. It matters not who casts them.”

Valeera merely kept her gaze forward as Maiev approached her. As she towered over her - scarred and grizzled. Nothing but steel and sinew beneath her battered skin. From the missing tip of one of her ears to the scar to the marred side of her face. She held no sword. Valeera had no doubt she didn't need to be holding one. Silence had been the safest course of action.

“Good, then.” Maiev said lowly, though everyone could hear her - of that much, Valeera was certain. “You already know your place. Let us see if you are worthy of the company you keep.” 

Valeera swallowed thickly in response. Despite the past months of her life - it was everything she could do to continue to bite her tongue. Liadrin, fortunately, provided a welcome distraction as Maiev continued to walk the line of new recruits in order to size them up. At least she could let her mind wander for a few moments as her eyes settled on muscles that were already glistening in the heat of the ring - flexing hard against the weight of the squared piece of lumber she was hoisting from the ground. 

“You, Troll.” Valeera scarcely heard Maiev’s grating voice somewhere along the edge of her senses. She paid enough attention, of course. But only just. “You’ve been smirking since you strolled in here. Pick your opponent. I fear the cockiness is undeserved.”

Valeera’s ear flicked faintly and she shifted her attention slightly - watching carefully as the troll sized up the line of newcomers and then made a gesture towards her own end of it. “That one.” 

“The Elf?” Maiev asked curiously, walking back towards Valeera slowly. 

“No. I want a challenge. The man next to her.” He corrected as a few of the others gathered around chuckled. Maiev stopped in her tracks just before she reached Valeera and, without looking back at the troll who’d spoken so brashly, she replied. “The Elf it is, then.” 

Valeera was capable of a lot of things. Moreso now than ever. What she wasn’t capable of, however, was hiding the faint smirk that quirked the corners of her lips. It wasn’t lost on the Doctore. And, thankfully, she didn’t acknowledge it. She was too distracted by the troll’s response. 

“Doctore. Beg your pardon, but I wouldn’t mind breaking a sweat today.” 

Valeera had underestimated the Night Elf standing in front of her. She’d never seen someone move so quickly. Before she could even decipher what was happening - the whip had uncoiled and cracked so close to the troll’s face even he wasn’t certain whether or not he’d been struck for a moment. 

“Do you think you are here for your wit, troll?” Maiev asked in a low, dangerous tone as she turned her head so she could see him from the corner of her eye. “Would you rather I match you against our Champion?” 

Liadrin didn’t even turn to look. She allowed the log she’d been supporting against her shoulders to fall past her back to floor of the ring - the sound of it hitting the ground echoing against the walls in a way that left little doubt as to how heavy it had been. 

She took a few steps towards the nearest weapons rack through the cloud of dust her discarded burden had produced. “Wood or steel, Doctore?”

“No, no. I meant no offense. If you wish me to fight the Elf, I will.” He might not have looked panicked. He sure sounded it, though. Yet Liadrin didn’t stop until she reached the rack - waiting patiently for her Doctore’s orders. 

“Neither.” Maiev muttered darkly as one of Liadrin’s ears shifted slightly in her direction. She looked almost disappointed as she walked away from the rack with a wooden practice blade towards a nearby training dummy.

“As you wish, Doctore.” 

“Arm yourself, Shadow. And you. The Great Comedian.” Maiev wound her whip back up slowly - only turning to look at them again once the center of the ring had cleared out and they were the only ones standing within it. 

It was only now that Maiev had a chance to truly look at the way Valeera held herself. The ease and the fluidity with which she did something so simple as stand. Liadrin was relieved as she looked on. Relieved that Valeera didn’t seem in the least concerned about her towering opponent. An opponent who looked altogether too confident in his would-be victory.

“Fight.” 

The troll made the first move rather quickly. Foolish against a fighter like Valeera. Charging headlong at someone so small and agile was a sure way to get. Ah. There it was. Valeera swept his legs from beneath him before he could even gather his wits about him enough to see it coming. 

Her feet slid through the dust without ever seeming to leave it. She stayed grounded. Nearly always. Every time he came at her he only missed her by an inch or two and anyone with any experience could see that the near-misses were almost certainly intentional on Valeera’s part. This continued until he was dripping with sweat and panting heavily. No blows had been exchanged. 

That changed now, though. He let out what could only be considered a roar and charged at her with his arms spread to keep her from side-stepping him. Instead of attempting to dart out of his way as she had been - Valeera met him full-force. She centered her weight over her own hips and shouldered him just above his belt - flipping him onto his back easily despite her size and rolling with him to the ground so that she was straddling his stomach. Her practice blades were crossed against his throat mercilessly. Pressing against his windpipe as he glared up at her and showed her his teeth. Valeera only pressed harder in response. She pushed until the fight left him. Until he was looking almost frantically for Maiev to call the fight. 

Maiev looked from the defeated troll towards the other recruits who had been watching in near-shock. “Missio.” She began in such a commanding tone that even the more seasoned fighters paid attention. “Two fingers lifted to signal to the Editor that you are at his mercy. That you have been shamed in defeat and are too full of cowardice to accept your fate. To accept a glorious death in the arena.” 

She came to a stop near where Valeera still had the troll pinned and looked from the Blood Elf and her bared fangs to the troll beneath her. “So, now. What are you, Troll? Comedian...or coward?”

The troll’s rasping attempts at dragging air into his lungs were the only audible response. Valeera made sure of that. She knew just the right amount of pressure. Just the right places. Yet - even when the troll slowly lifted two trembling fingers, she didn't let up. No. She turned her attention to Maiev. 

“Show him the mercy he begs for then, Shadow. And let this be the last time you do so.” 

Valeera’s ears lowered at that. For a moment, Liadrin nearly stepped forward to intervene - but the sight of The Doctore allowing her whip to unfurl against the ground was enough encouragement, it seemed. Valeera let up and stood slowly - wiping the sweat shed only just begun to break from her brow as she walked away to re-rack her chosen weapons. 

“This what we learning here, then?” A troll asked from the line - no doubt altogether too attached to the one currently picking himself up off the ground. “To fight like we fear our opponent?”

Maiev leveled a gaze at him that would have chilled the blood in the veins of a hundred men. “You are here to either become Gladiators or die trying. That is your only purpose, now. Your one and only reason for being.”

“My _family_ is-”

Another move - this one even quicker than the crack Maiev had delivered with her whip before fight - wrapped the tip of that same implement around the speaking troll’s ankle and he was on his back with the wind knocked from his lungs before he could finish speaking. “Nothing.” Maiev cut him off further with a snarl. “They won’t keep you alive. They won’t help you survive the Arena - if you ever make it there.” 

With a harsh tug, Maiev freed the end of her whip from the troll’s ankle and didn’t bother to coil it back as she approached him. “Though I doubt you will.” She gestured behind herself with the handle of her whip without looking, managing to point directly at Valeera without even needing to see where she was. “This one, perhaps. But you. All of you. Too sure of yourselves. Too loud. You speak when you ought to bite your tongues. You must not yet realize that that is the quickest way to find it removed from your skulls.” 

Only then did Maiev turn and walk towards the shade the main house of the Ludus cast over part of the training grounds. Only then did she pull the leather of her whip up out of the sand and back into her hand as the trolls fell back in line of their own accord - surprisingly quiet, now. 

“Warm up. We’ve a long day ahead of us if I’m to even begin to whip you lot into any sort of shape.” Maiev leaned back against the wall she was standing near - watching each of the recruits and the way they chose to do her bidding. 

A long day, indeed. Valeera had never ached in so many places in all her life. She was scarcely able to walk by the time they’d had their dinner and gathered to bathe. The isolation didn’t help much, either. She stayed clear of almost everyone. The fact that Liadrin hadn’t yet arrived in the baths had her sitting on the edge of the room - her ears pressed back as she tried to ignore snide whispers and murmurs yet still straining for the sound of the only person she knew here...even if they hadn’t known each other long. 

Now and then, she could have sworn she heard that voice in the hallway. But maybe the heat was getting to her. As much as she hurt - she was twice as hot. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach seemed like it had settled in for the long haul. These were all feelings she had grown used to over the past months, though. Feelings she had come to accept as just another facet of this mockery of a life she now had to call her own. 

That voice she’d thought she’d been hearing, though - that deep, strangely gentle tone that was so unique to Liadrin - kept playing just at the edge of her thoughts. She almost didn’t believe her eyes as the woman walked into the room and cast her gaze on its suddenly hushed inhabitants - a gaze that didn’t stop its search until it landed directly on Valeera. 

Liadrin bypassed the baths entirely then and made her way to who she’d been seeking. Valeera watched her, of course. She watched how the older woman walked like there wasn’t a single strain in her body - nor an ache. Even the slightest sign of discomfort was nowhere to be found as she sat down on the bench beside Valeera and reached for the cloth the younger woman had been running listlessly over a rather angry looking scrape on her leg. 

“I’ll take care of this tonight.” Liadrin murmured so quietly as she moved the cloth away from the wound that Valeera knew no one but her would hear her. 

“And yourself?” Valeera asked just as softly as she reached out to touch along a cut splitting Liadrin’s shoulder that was considerably more serious than her own rather superficial injury. 

“No. Only you.” Liadrin responded simply before she began washing herself off with the rag she’d just taken from Valeera’s hands. It was quick. There was no lingering. No real care for herself or focus on cuts and bruises that just didn’t seem to register with her. 

“Why?” Valeera asked with a sudden furrow of her brow. “Why only me?”

Footsteps in the corridor outside cut Liadrin’s reply off - if she’d even been formulating a response to begin with, though Valeera doubted that. Liadrin seemed entirely disinclined to talk about herself. Or even to talk much at all. Yet her presence was still...something. Something real. Something Valeera could focus on. At least until Maiev rounded the corner into the bathing rooms. 

“Your pairings.” She announced as everyone got to their feet no matter how exhausted they were. Liadrin seemed...almost excited. In a way that made Valeera’s ears shift backwards slightly. 

“Liadrin - Chamion of Kalimdor - the Blood Knight. You will face The Warbringer. O’mrogg. Your Shadow will accompany you. It should prove an interesting bout.” 

While everyone remained silent, nearly a dozen sets of eyes cut in Valeera’s direction. Jealousy. Confusion. Anger. If Maiev noticed, she didn’t say anything. She simply glanced at the Forsaken woman that had padded into the room after her and handed the list over to her. “The rest of your pairings will be announced by Voss. Rest well - if you can. You will need your strength tomorrow.” 

As the others rushed forward as soon as Maiev left the room - Valeera hung back with Liadrin, who looked unusually pensive. 

“O’mrogg?” She asked in confusion as she tried her best to remember if she’d ever heard the name before. 

“An Ogre.” Liadrin responded simply, looking at Valeera and swallowing thickly. This was the first time in years that she’d felt anything akin to nerves - yet she felt it, now. Oh, she felt it - as Valeera tried to steel herself and hide the worry and discomfort she was feeling. “Who will not touch you.” 

Valeera looked like she wanted to say something - but instead, she looked over her shoulder at the others still scrambling to get ahold of the list that held no more mystery for her. 

“You don’t want to talk around them.” Liadrin observed. “Is it that you think they aren’t like you?” 

Valeera’s face reddened suddenly in a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. “No. I could give a fuck. Perhaps I don’t want them to hear the way that you talk to me. Perhaps I don’t want to be just a crack in this...whatever you present to the others.” Valeera wasn’t looking at her anymore. She was looking at a rather uninteresting bucket of soiled water on the ground beside their feet. That’s why she was surprised when Liadrin touched her side - tracing the lines of her exposed ribs for just a moment before her hand fell. 

“Nothing could change their opinion of me. Not that such things concern me. I think it’s time we retired for the night unless you have somewhere better to be than my rooms.” 

Valeera might have rolled her eyes if that gentle touch weren’t still sending shockwaves through her psyche along with every inch of her body. Retiring didn’t sound bad at all. The walk to Liadrin’s room, however...that was another story, entirely. Yet something about walking next to her gave her the strength...or the hard-headedness required to keep moving without so much as a complaint. A ruse she kept up even after Liadrin had shut the door that separated them blissfully from the terrible reality of the world outside. 

“You needn’t pretend like this. I know you’re hurting. I can almost feel it, myself.” Liadrin commented idly as she began unwrapping the leather strips that had been protecting her knuckles and her wrists - discarding them onto her table before she began unbuckling the harness-like piece of armor that spanned her chest over the shirt she wore. 

Once the shirt was tugged off - Valeera caught the scarcest glimpse of her back for the first time before she turned. Criss-crossed with thick, terrible scars that had joined together in some places and seemed to stretch almost too tightly across the muscles there. It was only a glimpse, though - before Liadrin pulled on a clean shirt and turned to look at her. She could guess easily what Valeera was thinking - what she’d seen - by the look on her face. “Sit.” Liadrin continued - her voice softer than the almost reprimanding tone it had taken on only moments earlier. 

Valeera glanced towards the edge of the bed and sank down onto the mattress. She hadn’t prepared herself for how wonderful the softness of it would feel. It paled in comparison, though, to the way Liadrin approached her. And any thought at all faded away entirely when the older woman lowered herself to her knees before her. 

The touch along her calf was so soft she could have wept. The way Liadrin’s eyes met her own before lowering slowly made her breath catch in her throat. And the warmth of Healing against skin that still stung terribly...the soothing calm it brought over her...god. Valeera hadn’t even noticed the quiet gasp she’d let out until it had already happened. Until Liadrin’s ears had already twitched in response to it. 

“Is this the only one?” Liadrin asked in a low murmur - almost standing again when Valeera nodded only to find the younger woman’s hand resting carefully on her shoulder. 

Seemingly as one, they touched. Liadrin slid her fingertips over newly healed skin and cradled the back of Valeera’s leg - kneading muscles that were screaming for relief. Relief she gladly gave. Through healing and unparalleled knowledge of combat strain. 

And Valeera...Valeera simply trailed her own touches along the side of Liadrin’s neck and along the edge of her ear - tracing a little notch in it near the tip. 

She must have nodded off a dozen times by the time Liadrin finished working her legs. In fact, the last time, she was only startled awake by the feeling of arms lifting her into bed. Arms that were stronger than she could have ever guessed yet undeniably soft. 

As though it had only just dawned on her, Valeera gasped and reached for the wound on Liadrin’s shoulder only to find her hand clasped in Liadrin’s own and pulled between their chests as the older woman moved to lay so that she was facing her. 

“Why?” Valeera asked - repeating her unanswered question from earlier in a tone that was so muddled it left Liadrin wondering how she was still conscious. 

“Because I am meant to look like this and you are not.” Liadrin responded simply. “Because I am not allowed to heal myself. And because you deserve to rest comfortably.” 

“So do you.” Valeera responded in a whisper - fighting with the last of her reserves to stay awake as Liadrin traced the inside of her wrist. A wrist she was still holding to keep from being touched. 

“And I will. Your breathing soothes me.” 

“....What?” 

Liadrin found she didn’t need to repeat herself. Almost as soon as that quiet, confused response left Valeera’s lips - so did wakefulness. Liadrin wasn’t far behind. The gentle motion of Valeera’s chest rising and falling against their joined hands was even more lulling than the quiet exhales that accompanied it. 

That night, when the nightmares came, because they always came, - they came with less sharpness. Dulled by the slender arm that had come to rest around her waist. One that she hadn’t dared remove.


	4. Signum Pugnae

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

“Give me your hand.” Liadrin’s voice was significantly more steady than Valeera knew hers might be if she tried to respond so she simply held it out to her and watched as Liadrin began to carefully wrap it. The other woman started with her wrist and carefully drew some of the thin linen between her fingers and back up with each loop until her knuckles were equally as protected. It was such a careful, tender gesture that it left Valeera wondering if she could have spoken even if she'd wanted to. A gesture that was repeated just as intently on her opposite hand.

“Now your gloves.” Liadrin held out the first to her - making sure the leather fit over the linen wrappings comfortably on each hand. “How does that feel?” 

“Stiffer than I'm used to. I've never wrapped my hands before.” Valeera murmured quietly in reply. “But...thank you.”

Liadrin swallowed thickly and lifted her eyes to meet Valeera’s as the younger woman reached out to run her hand over the heavy armor that protected Liadrin’s shoulder and arm. “What do I do?”

“An ogre is smarter than any beast. This one, in particular, is smarter, still. They are quick to anger, though. He will be furious that he can't catch you. It won't take long for him to begin focusing a majority of his attention on me.” 

As the roaring of the crowd above became almost deafening, they moved closer to each other so they could speak. For Valeera, perhaps, the closeness was also a small comfort. As though she recognized this, Liadrin reached out to grip Valeera’s shoulder gently and ran her thumb along the side of her neck before she continued. “When that happens, either you find a way to take him down from behind, or you make sure he bleeds out before I exhaust myself.”

Valeera nodded and her eyes fell shut as the raucous shouting above was soon joined by the pounding of feet in a combination that sounded almost like a terrible storm. When she opened her eyes again, they widened immediately as she watched Liadrin run the edge of her blade against her own side until the already scarred skin there split beneath it. 

“What...what the fuck are you doing?” Valeera asked in a near panicked whisper. 

Liadrin glanced up at Valeera as she lowered the blade and allowed some of her own blood to pool in the hand she'd been holding beneath the fresh wound. “Getting dressed.” Liadrin replied before running her hand over her face so that it was coated in its entirety. The wound was gone as soon as Liadrin's hand fell from her own skin - her bloodied palm covered with a glove she quickly slipped onto her fingers. So. This must have been the exception to the rules regarding Liadrin’s healing. 

“ _Why?_ ” Valeera hissed - clearly still more than just a little alarmed. 

Liadrin regraded Valeera for a moment then stood from the bench they'd been sitting on together, walking towards the cage-like door that led into the arena. “It's a long story, Valeera. And we've just run out of time.” She scarcely got out her statement before an orc marched up to the door and looked in at them.

“Showtime, elves.” 

Liadrin’s face hardened as she pushed her helmet onto her head and lifted her shield from the wall it leaned against. Showtime, indeed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
_“I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I cannot continue on this way.” Liadrin’s words came out amidst sobs as she lay in the dirt of the holding cage she'd already been paraded out of more times than she could count since her capture. “I refuse.”_

_“You have no choice.” Maiev’s voice was void of sympathy - though her heart hammered heavily in her chest and she felt her breath begin to hitch in her throat. She surveyed Liadrin slowly. The Knight’s back was still in ribbons from her various punishments throughout her trials. Back when such things were enough to force her into action. Her wounds were too many to count. Yet, still, she had strength left in her._

_“How many could there possibly be left?!” Liadrin’s response was a hoarse scream as she pushed herself from the sand - turning her wild eyes towards the Doctore. “I have killed so many. I have...I have no wish to survive this, I...”_

_“You must stop, Liadrin. You must stop thinking those Knights are still your people. They belong to the Orcs, now. As do we all. Besides...you do them a kindness. Your suffering is greater, perhaps, than any of them could endure.”_

_Liadrin gritted her teeth and bared them as she moved towards the nearest wall and slammed her palms against it before she nearly collapsed into the stone. “How many, aside from me?” She asked in a trembling whisper. “How fucking many of us are left? Tell me.”_

_Maiev had to look away for a moment. She had to look away to gather the strength she needed to answer that question. “One.”_

_Fear made Liadrin's blood run cold. It made her ears pin back against her head as she turned to look at Maiev in shock with tears stinging at her eyes. “No.”_

_Maiev lowered her head. She knew. She knew the pain in that whispered denial all too well. “After this...you will be a Gladiator. Only make it through this day.”_

_Maiev didn't bother to prepare her for what she was about to face. Nothing could have. The crowd had already chosen their favorite. The Knight. And Kargath wouldn't risk losing her, now._

_But Liadrin nearly collapsed when she entered the ring and watched as two guards dragged Lor'themar towards her and dropped him onto his knees. He'd been blinded. His remaining eye removed in a way that looked like it had been non too gentle...or clean. He was but a shell of a man - too weak, now, to lift himself back up. And, oh, how he shook. How every inch of his body trembled. “End it.” He croaked out with the last of his energy. “Please.”_

_“No.” Liadrin breathed, stepping towards him as she nearly dropped her sword only to find Lor'themar reaching for her hand in response to the sound. And then...he guided her fingers back around the hilt._

_“Liadrin…” he whispered with an almost-smile. “Is it you, then? I knew. I knew it would be you. I...I am so glad. Come here, let me…”_

_Liadrin fell to her knees and the crowd began booing almost immediately as Lor'themar reached for her face with what she assumed to be his own blood dripping from his hands. She held herself still as he touched over her features and then gripped her shoulders. “It really is you.” He gasped as Liadrin’s own tears burned trails through the blood he'd left on her face._

_“It is. I'm...Lor'themar I am so sorry. I can't.”_

_“You must. End this, Liadrin. It has to be you. It simply has to be. I haven't the strength...I…they took my eye, Liadrin.”_

_The former Matriarch nearly choked, then. “I won't.”_

_She could hear orcs shouting orders at her from both inside and outside the arena yet they sounded too far away for her to truly give them any of her attention._

_“Please, Liadrin. Release me. It's so dark. I...I can no longer see the sun.”_

_The yelling was getting closer. The crowd’s displeasure had become a roar in her ears. “Lor’themar…”_

_Liadrin didn't know how he managed, but he did. He gathered enough strength that he was able to pull her close to be heard. “You are the only one strong enough to not only survive, Liadrin...but to one day avenge our people. My time is over. The pain is...insufferable. One day you will walk the streets of Silvermoon, again. Victorious. Free. I will be watching proudly, you have my word. You will always be the sister of my heart, Liadrin. Long after this day is done.”_

_Liadrin grabbed onto his armor at his side firmly as a sob choked against her throat. “And you, the brother of mine. I will make it clean. You won't feel it, Lor’themar. I promise you. You were a good man. The very best of us.”_

_Lor’themar nodded. Only once...and then he slumped forward into her arms with a shuddering exhale and Liadrin’s blade through his heart._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The Champion of Kalimdor! The Undefeated! The most ruthless of her kind that you will ever lay your eyes upon!” The crowd was nearly leaping from the stands as Liadrin first stepped up into the arena. “The Blood Knight!” Kargath lifted his fist in the air from his box on the podium to a rowdy response. A response that only grew louder as Liadrin lifted her helm from her head and tossed it to the side to reveal the source of her name. A name that had been earned at the highest of costs. Blood. The blood of her people. The blood of her closest friend. ...And her own.

“It is also my pleasure to announce the Champion’s pairing. I will let you decide for yourselves if it is good sport to let them fight in the arena as one. Where are you, Shadow? Let yourself be seen! Enough skulking!” 

Valeera took a deep, steadying breath and walked out after Liadrin, tightening her fists around her blades and spinning them easily to get a feel for their weight - a move the crowd seemed quite appreciative of, much to her chagrin. 

“The challenger, now? Would you like to meet him?” 

Another excited roar as Valeera watched the way Liadrin rolled her shoulders and turned in a slow circle to survey the crowd even as Kargath announced their opponent. 

There wasn’t enough time. Everything happened so quickly. Liadrin was charging the ogre so fast that he could do little more than raise his mace to counter her velocity. Instead of trying to dodge it - she turned her weight into it behind her shield and both his heads looked equally shocked when the force of the impact knocked him back a few paces. 

That shock quickly turned into a low, rumbling chuckle as the mace was swung around in his hand a few times. One set of eyes stayed on Liadrin as the other went searching for Valeera. He caught her before she was able to lunge behind him, but as he swung at her, Liadrin reeled with the point of her shield in the ground and caught the mace with the edge of her sword - causing it to glance aside as Valeera narrowly slid past the exchange. 

“You have sent a snail to fight me?!” Liadrin asked in a loud, commanding tone that brought with it a roar of laughter from the spectators. “Bringer of War?” She demanded just as loudly as she grinned and tugged her shield out of the ground where she’d planted it. “More like bringer of sleep.” She turned her sneer to the ogre as she spoke and her grin became so wide it was nothing short of wicked. Especially the way her glinting fangs contrasted the drying blood that streaked her skin. 

A grin that was quickly wiped from her face as the hand not holding the mace swiped at her with such power she found herself tumbling backward rather violently until she drove her sword into the ground to keep from getting any farther from him. “Ah!” She gritted her teeth as she stood - not yet feeling the sand that had ground into the places where her skin had been scraped away. “He wakes!” 

With a roar, the ogre charged her, and the ground thundered in his wake. The following exchange was difficult for Valeera to watch, yet she knew it was her opening. As the ogre began pounding away at Liadrin’s shield and occasionally wracking her entire body when she had to catch his mace with her own weapon, she made her move. It was quick. So quick that even Liadrin hadn’t noticed it until he groaned in sudden surprise and pain and nearly stumbled. Valeera slid backward quickly as he reeled on her and a spray of blood from his severed hamstring caught Liadrin across her chest. 

She was panting heavily as she nodded at Valeera then nodded her head to her left. The ogre’s fresh injury made it impossible for him to turn quickly enough to retaliate as Valeera slid past him and slung the blood from her blade before it could even begin to drip towards her hand. “Good.” Liadrin nodded as she spoke and Valeera began looking her over. “No. You focus. You focus only on him.” 

Valeera knew there was logic in that. She knew. But Liadrin also looked like she’d been dragged by a chariot of horses anywhere there wasn’t armor on her back half. It was difficult to force her attention back to where it needed to be. On the ogre who was struggling to get turned around to face them.

Liadrin had never seen anyone or anything look more outraged than the two heads staring at them right then. 

“This is gonna be rough.” Liadrin muttered to Valeera as she lowered herself closer to the ground behind Liadrin - ignoring the blood that oozed slowly down her back, though it took nearly all the willpower she had in her to do so. “But I need you behind him again. As quickly as you can manage.”

“I will be.” Valeera answered simply, narrowing her eyes and stepping closer to Liadrin as the Ogre began wailing on her as soon as he was within range. He beat against the steel that she held between them in rage. No goal. No thought. Just fury. Each blow jarred Liadrin’s body painfully as she bared her teeth and dug her heels in. 

“I will eat you for dinner, filthy elf.” The ogre snarled down at her as she struggled to keep his mace away from herself when she caught it against the top edge of her shield.

Liadrin, with every muscle in her body trembling, with every inch of her skin either glistening with sweat and blood or dulled by the sand that had stuck to her over the course of their bout - snarled viciously in response. 

“Be sure, then, that you eat my entire ass.” 

In a move that impressed nearly everyone watching - she pushed upwards with such strength that he nearly fell over backward. 

The move only drove Valeera’s blades that much deeper into his kidneys. A gurgling roar of anguish left him as she pulled them free - painting the nearest wall of the arena with his blood as he fell forward in defeat. 

She dropped her arms to her sides - panting heavily for a moment...until she realized Liadrin was gone. That she was...fuck. _Fuck_. 

“Liadrin!” Gasps rose throughout the crowd. Spectators lept to their feet as Valeera tried fruitlessly to roll the ogre off of her until she turned - looking desperately for anything that might help her cause. 

And while her back was turned a loud, hollow thump echoed from behind her and she turned just in time to see Liadrin standing - albeit slowly - and dusting herself off as she sputtered. Had...had she just lifted an ogre? An ogre that had _fallen_ on her? 

“Rather ripe under there. A warning next time, perhaps?” 

Valeera had only just made out those words when the entire arena became a cacophony of victorious shouts and stamping of feet on the wood and stone beneath them. 

Valeera could have kissed her. She could have lept into her arms. But she did neither of those things. Instead, she looked towards Kargath as he called everyone's attention to himself with a loud rap of the hook on his arm against the edge of the box he was standing in. 

“Your victors! Your Champion...and her shadow! Your newest Gladiator! Surely a worthy pair for your future enjoyment!” 

Valeera hadn’t thought it was possible for the noise to get even louder. Now? She wasn’t entirely sure she was going to escape with her hearing. 

The words still sank in, though. She would stay. She would stay with Liadrin. She could care for her. She could...she could…

“That’s our cue.” Liadrin said as she approached Valeera, and the younger woman winced to watch the way she moved. Like there was nothing wrong with her at all. “Time to go.” 

Valeera nodded numbly and walked from the center of the ring at Liadrin’s side. 

“Does this please you?” Valeera asked as they ducked beneath an archway into a dark, dusty corridor. “For me to be your shadow?” 

“You are more than a shadow, Valeera. Let them call you what they will.” Liadrin responded, finally relieving herself of the heavy burden of her shield and _finally_ wincing as she did so. It was only then that Valeera saw the angry bruising along her forearm - the one that had been bracing it against the ogre’s impossibly heavy blows. 

“Let me help you.” Valeera whispered almost urgently as she rested her own weapons next to it, reaching out for Liadrin and stopping almost as soon as she had. “Tell me how. Please.” 

Liadrin let her sword fall to the ground next to her shield and lifted her gaze to meet Valeera’s. “With this?” She asked, no doubt addressing the wounds smattering her already heavily scarred body. “I don’t need help with this.” 

“Liadrin, don’t be...just...this has to mean something. This has to count for something. I can’t just watch you let yourself suffer. I can’t stand idly by and-”

“Then come to my rooms with me.” Liadrin licked her dry lips and turned her neck until it cracked to relieve herself of some of the stiffness there. “You needn’t stand, I assure you.” 

Valeera met the older woman’s gaze. She met the hunger in it. The fierceness that hadn’t yet faded. Valeera felt it. She felt it coursing through her own veins as it must have been through Liadrin’s. The steps that Liadrin took that brought them closer together...she felt those, too. As she felt the wall against her back and Liadrin’s arms against her side - the hot metal that covered one and the sandy, sticky skin of the other. Her hands were against the wall. Valeera’s - on those same arms. “You needn’t be my shadow there, either.” Liadrin husked against her jaw. 

Valeera could only smell blood. Blood and sweat and...and she realized she didn’t care.

“You need only be mine for a little while. If you wish to be.” 

“And perhaps you, mine?” Valeera asked as she tilted her head up when she felt Liadrin’s fangs graze her neck in a way that made her breath catch hard in her chest. 

Liadrin pulled back and her brow furrowed. She looked almost confused, though very little of the fire in her eyes had faded. 

Valeera recovered quickly. She reached up with both hands and stroked some of the sweat from Liadrin’s face - along with some of the blood that had been dampened by it again. Then she nodded. “We’ll go to your rooms.” She whispered hurriedly. Breathlessly. She didn’t want this to slip away. She _needed_ this. She needed to fucking _feel_. To feel something other than pain. 

And she knew Liadrin needed the same. She could feel it in the painfully tense muscles of her neck and in the stillness with which she stood against her. 

Yet...there was a gentleness in the way Liadrin took her hand and turned from her. 

Valeera didn’t expect that gentleness to last...nor did she need it to. 

It was simply something to be tucked away. 

Not something to dwell upon or to question. 

Just…something to feel.


	5. Be Thou My Ally

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

Valeera wasn’t particularly surprised to find herself pinned to the door as soon as it shut. Nor was she surprised to reach for Liadrin’s sides and feel every muscle there as tense as a wound spring.

Whatever had been keeping Liadrin from this had snapped, and it had snapped violently and suddenly. The shaking in the breaths puffing out against the side of her neck told her as much. Yet, Valeera didn’t know where to touch. It seemed like everywhere her fingertips went there was sand that was likely sticking to a wound...yet the touches didn’t seem to phase Liadrin. 

“Water.” Valeera whispered breathlessly as one of her hands finally came up to cradle the back of Liadrin’s head. “Let me wash you, Liadrin. I’ve no idea where to touch you. Please.” 

“You don’t need to touch me.” Liadrin breathed in reply, turning them and walking Valeera slowly towards the bed on the far side of the room. Valeera stopped them, though. More firmly than Liadrin might have expected. She stopped them near the table where Liadrin’s water pitcher was and swallowed thickly as she fumbled for a cloth they’d left laying there. 

“Wait.” Valeera whispered urgently, though she was loath to pull her attention away from the almost wild look of need in Liadrin’s eyes. “The armor. Off. Now.” Valeera’s tone was firm in a way that caused Liadrin to think clearly enough to do so, if only for the moment - and the pieces of it began falling to the floor. Valeera followed each quickly with the cloth, turning her and working the bandages biding her breasts free as she began squeezing the cloth over the ruined skin of her back - watching both sand and blood run down her body. 

Before all this, if she’d known Liadrin then, she might have told her no. She might have told her that they would wait until she was healed. That there would be time. But that wasn’t true, now. There was never time. None that was their own, anyway. So she ignored the scars she was running that cloth over. She ignored the fact that the only sign of the excruciating discomfort Liadrin must have been in was an occasional tensing of muscle or a twitch of skin. 

Valeera turned her back around and glanced past her towards the bed. “Sit down.” She ordered softly, watching Liadrin process what hadn’t exactly been a request and then...listen. She sat. Still breathing heavily and...shaking? But she sat, nonetheless. 

That was when Valeera lifted the cloth to her face. To the blood that was still drying against it. That was when Liadrin had had enough. That was when she reached up to grasp Valeera’s wrists with both hands and her eyes burned up into the green ones looking down at her. 

“Why?” Liadrin asked as she narrowed her eyes. “Why are you doing this?” 

“Because this isn’t the real you. This isn’t who you are.” She tugged her wrist free and began wiping over Liadrin’s face again until the older woman stood rather suddenly and reached up - grasping the sides of her neck before she could really do anything about it. 

“Do you think you can wipe clean what I am, Valeera? Do you think if you can’t see the blood on my skin, that it’s gone? Do you truly believe that?” 

“There is nothing to wipe clean, Liadrin. You think I don’t see underneath all this. You think I wasn’t awake when you let me hold you the other night. You think I can’t feel the gentleness in the way you’ve touched me? Do you? You must think me blind and dumb, then.”

“Just naive.” Liadrin replied as her ears slid back even further. 

“Alright, then. Prove it. Fuck me like you don’t care. Fuck me like the monster you are. Is that what it is? Is that what you need to convince yourself you are to make it through the day? Go ahead.” Valeera had already unbuckled the leather across her chest as she began speaking. The armor pieces adorning her arms had already slipped free and been tossed to the floor. The bandages were next. Unfurled easily now that they were no longer covered, until her chest was exposed and there was nothing left between them from the waist up. 

To say Valeera was surprised at the sudden grip on her hair would have been a severe understatement. To say she was surprised at the way she was pushed down onto the bed would have been just as much of one. It wasn’t that she minded. It was just that she had been so sure she was right about Liadrin. That she’d been right about the little peeks into who she’d once been. But the sound and feeling of the cloth covering between her legs tearing easily in the strength of Liadrin’s grip wasn’t really something to be argued with or debated about. 

For a moment, as Liadrin breathed in sharply against the crook of her neck and gripped her thighs to spread them, she just lay there - listening to the heaviness of her breathing and feeling the way she shook slightly against her in between the faint rocking of her hips between her thighs. “I don’t care.” Valeera whispered, suddenly reaching to cradle the back of Liadrin’s head with her hand. “Whatever you need. It’s okay. I’m sorry.” 

Liadrin lifted her head from Valeera’s neck and looked down at her. At the openness in her expression. The honesty of it all. 

She pulled away from it so quickly it was as if she’d been burned, but Valeera followed her. She moved to straddle the other woman’s lap and cradled her face in her hands as though she would break if she wasn’t careful. “Don’t,” Valeera whispered, the urgency in her voice almost palpable. “Don’t run from it. Please. Liadrin, please, I need it, too.” 

Liadrin shook her head and the pained expression that crossed her features only caused Valeera to pull her firmly into her chest. “You’ve been doing this for ten years.” Valeera murmured as Liadrin’s hands came to rest around her waist, and then shifting towards her back until she was holding Valeera just as tightly as she was being held. “You don’t have to, anymore. I don’t give a shit what you had to do to survive. I’m glad you did it. I’m glad that you’re here.” 

“You wouldn’t say that if...if you knew, Valeera. You wouldn’t.” 

“Oh, but I would.” Valeera replied without hesitation. “We don’t play by the same rules, anymore. It’s been a long, long time since we did.” One of Valeera’s hands stayed firmly on the back of Liadrin’s neck and the other trailed over her back, avoiding hot, raw skin and, instead, tracing the thick, rope-like scars she’d glimpsed a few times now. “You were strong for so long. You wear that story on your skin, whether you tell it to me or not. How long? How long did it take them to break you? I can promise you I didn’t last anywhere near as long. I can fucking promise you that.”

Liadrin managed, somehow, to look into Valeera’s eyes, then. When the younger woman first kissed her, she didn’t react quickly enough. Valeera didn’t seem bothered, though. She just hovered near her lips and ran her thumbs gently along the older woman’s cheeks. “You don’t have to tell me.” She whispered. “You never have to tell me.” This time, Liadrin tilted her head up towards Valeera and returned the next kiss softly. She hadn’t forgotten. The realization was heavy...overwhelming. She hadn’t forgotten how to kiss someone. 

“Stay here.” Valeera murmured, starting to pull away carefully after risking yet another kiss. This one, Liadrin very nearly followed. She hadn’t realized. She hadn’t realized at all how much she missed this. How much she needed it. Even being without Valeera as she walked across the room seemed suddenly unbearable in that moment. 

She wasn’t gone long, however. She just rummaged through a chest beneath the barred window - looking through various things that had been won through victory or, perhaps, gifted to a favored Champion. She didn’t stand until she was holding a large, exquisitely tanned sheepskin. One that had been too fine for Liadrin to put on the floor or anywhere else, really. 

“What are you doing?” Liadrin asked quietly as she shifted almost uncomfortably on the bed. 

Valeera returned to her, then, and reached behind her to spread the skin along the bed. “You’re going to be comfortable when you lay down for me. That’s what I’m doing. Unless you’ve suddenly decided to stop refusing to heal yourself.” 

Liadrin glanced behind herself and by the time she looked at Valeera, the younger woman was already lowering her onto her back. She found the scrapes there were almost soothed by the contact. 

“How’s that?” Valeera asked as she began working on the laces holding Liadrin’s shin guards in place. 

“Better.” Liadrin admitted quietly, sighing softly as the guards and boots were slid down her legs. Valeera worked to remove the rest of their clothing as quickly as she could and then leaned over Liadrin, who seemed much more apt to touch her, again. And that gentleness was back like it had never left. In fact, it was more intimate, now. It came in soft, exploratory touches along Valeera’s sides and her hips as she drew the younger woman on top of her. 

“It’s really been ten years since you’ve touched someone like this?” Valeera asked quietly as Liadrin shifted slightly beneath her. 

“Yeah. So…” She trailed off, then, tracing the underside of one of Valeera’s breasts and sighed quietly as her eyelids fluttered somewhat. 

Valeera covered Liadrin’s hand with her own, then, and drew it higher - her expression softening as Liadrin drew in a sharp breath. “Take your time.” 

“You’re so fucking soft.” Liadrin whispered, grazing Valeera’s nipple with the side of her thumb as the younger woman began stroking down her stomach after a soft, breathy laugh left her in response to Liadrin's admission. Valeera traced the unforgiving hardness of the muscles beneath her hand and gradually reached between Liadrin's legs. 

“Can I touch you here?” Valeera asked quietly, grazing Liadrin’s inner thigh with the backs of her knuckles and then pressing a kiss to her cheek before murmuring against it. “Let me, Liadrin. Please.” 

Liadrin parted her legs further without hesitation, allowing Valeera to settle more comfortably between them, though Valeera continued to take her time. She traced the crooks of Liadrin’s thighs with her thumbs slowly and found her mouth once more with her own. As the kiss reached its deepest and most breathless, Liadrin arched hard away from the mattress when Valeera slowly pressed a long, slender finger into her. 

Valeera followed that motion easily - shifted with Liadrin as her body seemed to shift up the bed of its own accord when Liadrin broke the kiss to gasp sharply. For a moment, Valeera worried that it was too much. That she hadn't been careful enough. Those worries were wiped from her mind, though, when Liadrin reached between them and stroked over her hand, touching around where her finger was buried and her palm was pressed warmly over her clit. 

Valeera could have sworn she heard a curse fall from Liadrin’s lips, yet it hadn't been fully articulated amongst the shuddering breaths that had come along with it. 

“You are so strong.” Valeera whispered before she brushed her lips against Liadrin's temple. “And so beautiful. I think you've forgotten that part.” 

Valeera didn't acknowledge the darkening of Liadrin's cheeks and ears. No, she wouldn't have drawn attention to that for anything in the world, right then. “I'll remind you.” Another brush of lips - this time against the sharp line of Liadrin's jaw. “As often as you'll let me.”

The first time Valeera moved against her, Liadrin reached up and pulled her down against herself tightly for a moment, finding her shoulder with her teeth and sinking them in to muffle a groan she couldn’t for the life of her hold back. Encouraged, Valeera rocked her hips faintly between Liadrin’s legs, using the strength behind the movement to guide the thrusting of her finger. One finger, which quickly became two and had Liadrin clinging to her desperately. 

It only lasted for a moment. A brief glimpse into what they could truly have - before Liadrin was shuddering and digging her nails into Valeera’s sides as she came. Loudly. Moans and gasps rasped from her throat - sounds and shudders and trembling of muscles that Valeera found herself chasing all the way down Liadrin’s body. 

While Liadrin was still reeling from her first orgasm, Valeera wrapped her arms around her thighs and kissed desperately along them while Liadrin grabbed fistfuls of her hair just in time for the first feeling molten heat against her clit. She’d forgotten how this felt. She truly had. It felt...like she’d fallen into fire-warmed silk that was quickly threatening to engulf her entire existence. 

“Valeera.” Liadrin gasped out the name in a mixture of overwhelming pleasure and no small amount of panic and the younger woman quickly reached up to grasp Liadrin’s forearm firmly. But she didn’t stop. God, no, she didn’t stop. 

But she was so fucking gentle. Every soft stroke of her tongue sent a jolt through Liadrin’s body. A jolt Valeera felt in the thighs she was still holding and in the tensing of Liadrin’s arm beneath her hand. 

Valeera continued in this way until Liadrin’s hips, at least, had stopped jerking in a way that made what she was doing just short of impossible. Only then did she tighten her grip on that thigh to hold them still as she pressed her mouth against the wet heat more firmly. Only then did she suck softly against Liadrin’s clit. She was surprised at how utterly still the other woman went. Rigid, almost. 

“Please.” Liadrin whimpered. “Please.” 

If Valeera could have spoken right then, there were a hundred promises she would have uttered. A hundred soft reassurances. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop. Not now. Not for anything. And she didn’t have to. Liadrin was coming almost as soon as those pleas left her. It was quiet this time. Quiet aside from a string of sharp gasps that caused her ribs to flex beneath the muscle and skin that stretched across them. 

Valeera didn’t even flinch at the sharp discomfort of her scalp when Liadrin’s grip tightened. She just lifted her head gradually - panting quietly and running her hands along jerking muscles and heaving sides. 

As soon as she moved further up, Liadrin was pressing a thigh between her legs and gasping at the wetness she found there. Valeera hadn’t even realized. She’d been so utterly focused on the other woman she didn’t realize the severity of her own need until that pressure found it. “You don’t...Liadrin…” 

Liadrin only pressed harder. Only reached for Valeera’s hips and gripped them tightly as the younger woman’s weight fell against her chest. “Fuck.” Valeera panted as her face pressed into the mattress next to Liadrin’s head - giving Liadrin a perfect view of the back of her body as she rocked against that thigh. The rustling and tearing of sheets on either side of her own head was the next thing Liadrin became aware enough to notice as Valeera gripped them and pulled at them relentlessly, rocking hard and quick as she sought what Liadrin offered. 

When she found it, her thighs trapped Liadrin’s own between them. Her brows furrowed and she found the crook of Liadrin’s neck to hide against - to bury the shuddering moans that left her in until her hips came to a stilted, gradual stop. 

When a soft, broken sob met her ears - Valeera tried to lift herself quickly. She hadn’t even considered how her weight must have been aggravating the ruined skin of Liadrin’s back. Yet, she found arms around her own - arms that held her in a grip with more strength behind it than she could ever hope to escape. 

“Let go.” Valeera whispered urgently, lifting her head to find tears streaking Liadrin’s face. “Let go, I’m hurting you, Liadrin. Please.” 

Liadrin just shook her head, turning it away from the touches that were wiping the trails of dampness from her face. “You aren’t.” Liadrin gasped out. “I…”

Oh, she tried. She tried so fucking hard to reign it in. To quickly patch the holes in the walls she’d spent a decade building out of her own scars. 

But she failed. She failed the moment Valeera cradled her face in her palm and turned it back so she could look into her eyes. 

In a rush of motion, Liadrin was sitting up and Valeera was tugging her close. Pulling her head against her chest and shifting so her legs splayed out on the bed past her on either side of her hips. So that they couldn’t have been closer to one another if they tried. 

They were angry, bitter sobs. Sounds and emotions that had been bitten back against whip strikes and slurs and punishing fists and blades for so long that it was almost all Liadrin could remember. Until now. Until she remembered that she could be someone that deserved something. Something soft and kind and understanding and…

“Valeera...” Liadrin whispered the name almost brokenly...and with reverence. Like a hymn. 

But it was Valeera who was doing the worshiping. It was Valeera who was tracing Liadrin’s scars like they were prayer beads. 

“Let it go.” Valeera murmured as her own eyes began to sting. “God, Liadrin, you’re so strong. Let it go for me.” 

Neither of them was certain how long they sat there like that in each other’s arms. All Valeera knew was, eventually, Liadrin was leaning against her more heavily and more limply than she had been before. She didn’t know when, exactly, the shuddering had stopped - but it had. She wasn’t even sure whose tears were whose, anymore. 

The exhaustion hit like a stone wall. “Sit like this.” Valeera whispered - struggling just to get the words out. Liadrin nodded faintly and, with some effort, Valeera untangled herself from her and slipped out of the bed. 

She spent the next moments carefully washing every wound Liadrin had refused to acknowledge before. Meticulously rinsing the sand from them and catching the water with a towel so as to not dampen the mattress. 

Liadrin sat stock still through all of it, no matter how many times Valeera winced when she got to a new place. That was, at least, until she got to a rather deep cut on her hip. Even the touch of the cool, damp cloth caused Liadrin to tense visibly as Valeera’s eyes trailed over the hot redness surrounding it. 

“Liadrin...it’s infected.” Valeera murmured softly, glancing up in time to see Liadrin cast a look at her over her shoulder. 

“I know.” 

Valeera’s jaw clenched for a moment before she drew in a deep, steadying breath and spoke. “Just this once. For me. Please. Heal it.” 

Valeera had thought her plea would go unanswered as Liadrin just looked away again...but when she glanced back down, the infection was not only gone...the entire wound was suddenly a small sliver of healthy, pink skin that shone softly in what remained of the light coming through their window. 

“I didn’t do that for me.” Liadrin murmured, looking down at the bedcoverings between her own legs as Valeera discarded the soiled cloths and towels she’d been using. 

Valeera’s response came in a soft kiss to her shoulder before the sheepskin was flipped onto its other side and Liadrin found herself lowered back down onto it. “Thank you.” Valeera finally replied once she had Liadrin settled. “Thank you for protecting me out there. And thank you for all that you did for me tonight. For all that you gave to me.”

Liadrin’s cheeks colored darkly and she looked away even as Valeera moved to lay down beside her. “I didn’t give you-”

“You gave me everything.” Valeera whispered before Liadrin could even finish. “Everything that you had to give. More, even, than you thought you had left.” 

Liadrin removed her hand from where it had been laying against her own stomach and reached for Valeera’s, watching the way their fingers twined together effortlessly. 

She didn’t have an argument for that. And, judging by the way Valeera’s cheek came to rest against her shoulder, an argument hadn’t been expected

“Thank you, too.” 

“You have no idea how welcome you are.” Valeera whispered before turning her head enough that she could brush her lips against Liadrin’s shoulder. Just one more kiss before she slept. 

Hope. Hope was a dangerous, dangerous thing to have these days. 

Try as she might, however, Liadrin couldn’t force the feeling of warmth out of her chest. 

It had settled there too deeply. Too suddenly. 

Oh, and it was breathtaking. All eyes as green as emeralds and hair as golden as the sun and the gentlest touches. 

And the softest, most even breaths she’d ever heard. 

Breaths that she could count like stars as sleep began to take her.


	6. The Banshee Returns

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

_“Enough!” Kargath’s voice rang out sharply across the arena. “The Warden lives!”_

_It took six strong orcs to subdue Tyrande. To half-drag her from the arena as Maiev lay face down, gasping for breath, in a quickly darkening patch of sand. Kargath couldn't afford to lose her. She was who the people came to see. Not the crazed Night Warrior who was snarling and struggling against those who were pulling her back beneath the arena to be returned to the one who had brought her to face Kargath’s chosen Champion._

_As soon as it was safe, a group of attendants scrambled into the arena. The last thing Maiev remembered was a familiar face among them as she was turned onto her back. As the gaping gouges in her armor and in her very body were exposed._

_“Delaryn.”_

_It took everything in her just to say the name, and it came with a dribble of blood from the corner of her mouth. She tried to look, then. To look down at the severity of her wounds, but the enslaved woman stopped her and placed a cloth over her face. The darkness behind it brought something akin to sleep...something that, over the following days, became more akin to death._

_The fevers wracked her body. Her awareness came in short bursts of panic and unfathomable pain. Yet, always, there was Delaryn. Sometimes looking serene...sometimes looking distraught, if Maiev caught her unaware._

_The woman had been a gift of sorts. Sent to her no more often than twice a month for an evening at a time. Maiev would never win her freedom. None of them would. But that didn't stop her keepers from rewarding her, and they had caught the two of them gazing at each other too frequently to choose any of the other women in the ludus for her. The arrangement might have been appalling to Maiev, had they both not wanted it so terribly. They were some of the lucky ones, really. Though, that luck had been hard-earned in the arena. Hard-earned, indeed._

_It took nearly two weeks for her fever to break. She seemed almost confused to find Delaryn still in her room with her. Delaryn watched her from across it when her eyes first open. She waited to see if the terrifying haze had gone from them before she approached her quickly when she realized it was no longer there._

_“Delaryn.” Maiev didn't recognize the sound of her own voice. It grated through her throat in a way that was almost painful, but before she could reach for the bandages there, Delaryn stopped her._

_“Don't.” The younger woman murmured quietly, lowering the gladiator’s hand back onto the bed, avoiding the ruin that was her chest entirely._

_“When…” a look of extreme discomfort passed over Maiev’s features as the gravelly sound met her own ears, again. “When did you get here?”_

_“I haven't left.” Delaryn responded simply._

_“How…”_

_“I was a prize before.” Delaryn explained as she reached for a nearby dish of clean water and produced a cloth to wipe Maiev’s brow, displaying all the care and gentleness in the world. “And now, I would imagine, I'm a reason, of sorts. A reason for you to survive. What good would I do if they didn't allow me to stay?”_

_Maiev’s eyes slipped shut for a moment when her vision began to blur, and she found the comfort of Delaryn’s warm palm pressing to the side of her face._

_“You were already a reason.” Maiev whispered as she fought against unconsciousness._

_Delaryn smiled weakly and leaned in to brush a kiss against the corner of Maiev’s mouth, carefully avoiding the nearby wound across her lips that was still healing. “They don't need to know that. Now rest.”_

_There were little moments like that here and there. The orcs didn’t keep many healers alive - in fact, the ludus only had one, and she was stretched far too thin. What little energy she had went to Maiev. In fact, it was only thanks to her that she could even still speak at all. It was only thanks to her that she’d even survived those first weeks._

_The progress, though, was another story. It was slow. Frustrating. Maiev didn’t like being still, and there was little else to do but just that. If it weren’t for Delaryn, she’d likely have been going out of her mind instead of just laying quietly with her head resting in the younger woman’s lap._

_“What’s on your mind?” Delaryn asked in a murmur as she stroked along the length of one of her ears to the tip that had been lost but had finally healed._

_“Nothing.” Maiev still winced almost every time she spoke. This time, though, Delaryn stroked gently along her face when she did._

_“Does that still hurt you?” Delaryn asked, sounding so worried that Maiev’s brow furrowed as she turned her face and kissed her palm._

_“No. I’m just not used to it yet. I don’t mean to worry you.”_

_Delaryn snorted and rolled her eyes while she adjusted herself and leaned her shoulder against the nearby wall. “Worry me. Please, Maiev. You’ve nearly died more times than I care to count in the past month alone and you haven’t even been in the arena.”_

_“I’ll try to cut back.”_

_“See that you do.”_

_Maiev chuckled softly but the welcomed, if not strange sound faded quickly as the near-constant ache in her chest flared into dagger-like lances with the sudden movement._

_Delaryn exhaled sharply and leaned over Maiev carefully, cradling her head against her stomach and resting her fingertips just at the edge of the bandages that were still covering most of her upper half. She held her like that until her breathing began to return to normal and longer, still._

_“Do you think you can eat tonight?” Delaryn asked when she finally felt Maiev relax against her._

_“I’m going to try.”_

_A sigh of relief left Delaryn, then, and she slowly moved from beneath Maiev and lowered her head onto the pillow. It hadn’t been an easy few weeks. Maiev was angry. Restless. Sometimes, that came out in stinging words that Delaryn didn’t know what to do with. Sometimes, that came in Maiev shutting her out, entirely. But she was trying. God, she was trying. Delaryn knew she was._

_Yet, the hushed whimper from behind her caused her eyes to fall shut. “Let me help you.” She whispered as she looked over her shoulder where Maiev was pushing herself up to sit on the edge of the bed._

_Maiev shook her head and steeled herself as she sat there, waiting for Delaryn to accept that she was past accepting help, at least for such a simple task. A sigh of relief left her when Delaryn nodded and made her way towards the door and out into their section of the wing Maiev had been moved to for the duration of her recovery. She found a guard and refused the porridge she was offered, much to his obvious agitation._

_“This is for the Warden. She’s only just started eating again. Ask Kargath if he would approve of her being fed this slop, tonight.” Delaryn felt her heart hammering in her chest as the orc narrowed his eyes at her and grunted. Yet, the fierceness in her own didn’t waver. He took the bowl back from her roughly and disappeared, only to reappear a short while later with a warm hunk of bread and a bowl that had some sort of soup in it, and, blessedly - meat._

_Delaryn swallowed thickly and nodded at him before retreating back to the relative safety of Maiev’s room. She nearly dropped the tray she was holding when she saw Maiev standing on her own near the bed._

_“You shouldn’t...Maiev…”_

_“Just let me.” Maiev husked quietly, taking a weak step back towards the bed and lowering herself back onto it with a grimace. The muscles in her chest screamed in protest. Her underused legs shook with each minute movement. But she’d done it. She’d stood, taken a few steps, and gotten herself back to the bed. All while Delaryn stood there, holding their dinner with a look of disbelief on her eyes. This was, perhaps, the first time that she was convinced Maiev might actually recover. That she might not wind up crippled, though Maiev had voiced countless concerns about just that. You couldn’t be useless in a ludus. That was a death sentence._

_And if she was executed or shipped off somewhere else, that meant what little comfort Delaryn had found for herself with her in these rooms and what little security she could provide for her would be gone. That just wasn’t something Maiev could handle. So, every breath was for her. Every step._

_They shared their meal in silence. Delaryn could tell Maiev was more than exhausted, so she helped her lay down and sat with her for a while, just stroking gently along her hand and arm as it came to rest across her lap. “I need to change the bandages.” Delaryn murmured gently when she noticed Maiev looked like she was drifting off._

_This wasn’t a favorite part of the day for either of them. At least, now, enough flesh had returned that it covered muscle and bone while they both continued to heal. Thank the gods for that. The scarring, though...there was nothing to be done for it. The creams and salves Delaryn applied every night helped, but only so much._

_That wasn’t really what bothered Maiev, though. Only this was the first time she’d put it into words. “I’m sorry I don’t talk to you the way I used to.”_

_Delaryn lifted her gaze as she tucked the end of the bandage in just beneath Maiev’s arm and then stroked across her chest. “Don’t be. Don’t be sorry for anything.”_

_“It’s just...I…” Maiev sighed in frustration and, in response, Delaryn moved to lay down against her side - placing a hand against her stomach warmly and resting her head on her shoulder. This gave Maiev the opportunity to wrap one of her arms around her. That was something she’d only recently regained the ability to do and, god, they both needed it. “I don’t like the way it sounds. I know you don’t, either.”_

_“That isn’t true.” Delaryn breathed as she tiled her head up to press a kiss against Maiev’s jaw. “That isn’t true at all. I am unbelievably thankful that you still have a voice to speak to me with at all.”_

_They hadn’t really talked about it...and Maiev hadn’t been prepared for the rush of relief she felt in knowing her lover felt the way she did._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Delaryn hung back by the doorway as her eyes fell on Maiev while she slept. The blanket had fallen from her just so - just enough for the deep scars that marred her chest to be visible. Scars that bit down into the hard muscle there and the soft curves of her breasts. A small smile graced her lips when her eyes fell on the little lizard sleeping, curled up on the Doctore’s shoulder.

She knew she’d put him away with all the others before Maiev went to bed. She also knew he had a terrible habit of escaping on a near nightly basis. 

He eyed her warily as she approached and she gave him a look of warning. “Don’t wake her, Illidan.” She whispered as she reached for him. Her eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head as the little creature let out a dramatic scream the moment she lifted him into her hand and Maiev’s eyes opened into little slits of light. 

“Are you killing our son?” Maiev asked, the words coming easily and with a smile. Her voice was still broken. It still sounded like it filtered through shattered glass before it left her, but she used it. Especially with Delaryn. She used it with scarcely a thought about it, now. 

“Brutally murdering him that I may lay with you. His sacrifice won’t be in vain.” Delaryn responded as she lifted the little horned lizard and looked into his eyes. “Look what you’ve done.” 

“Lay with me, hm?” Maiev asked with a slight lift of one of her brows. 

Delaryn chuckled and carried Illidan towards his cage. She wasn’t even surprised that it was still shut and latched. She simply accepted it and placed him inside it before re-securing it and throwing a nearby blanket over it. 

“Yes. Lay with you.” Delaryn chuckled as she made her way over to the bed and sat on the edge of it - her chuckle turning into a quiet, amused laugh as Maiev stroked along the front of her body. “I’m beginning to think you left your sheets hanging off on purpose to seduce me.” 

“Are you?” Maiev asked as her eyelids lowered and one of Delaryn’s hands came to stroke slowly across her chest. 

Delaryn shifted, then, to move over the top of the other woman - straddling her waist and leaning over her so she could press a gentle kiss against her lips. “It worked, don’t worry.” 

Maiev finally moved, then. She rolled Delaryn onto her back in the bed and the next kiss was hungry and full of passion and fire. Delaryn wouldn’t ask her how her day had been. She wouldn’t ask her about the heels that had been bitten by her whip or the harsh words she’d delivered in the training arena. 

That wasn’t her Maiev. _This_ was her Maiev. All scars and hard muscle and raspy words mingling with the softest touches and the slowest, gentlest kisses. Maiev hung on every noise she made. Every quiet, sharp gasp and every movement. She sought them out like they were something to be clung to and treasured. 

And it was always like this. Every single time. Even when Maiev had been a gladiator. A Champion. She had always claimed her more utterly than anyone ever had. Not just through pleasure, either, though that was there in spades. She claimed her with the way she spoke in barely audible whispers against her ear. Whispers that brought her back into the moment and out of her haze of pleasure with a sudden rush. 

“Come for me, Del.” Maiev’s hips worked along with her hand between her legs with a strength that was both restrained and undeniable. Her free hand cradled Delaryn’s face as the younger woman’s nails dug into her back. 

It was only a moment later that Delaryn turned her head towards Maiev’s palm and released a series of shuddering, body-wracking gasps. Maiev watched that, too, as her body stilled against Delaryn’s. She brushed her thumb across her lips and Delaryn bit the pad of it gently even as she was still panting quietly. “I love you.” Maiev murmured those words against the flushed skin of Delaryn’s cheek as the bite of nails in her back slowly faded and turned, instead, into appreciative rubbing. “So much.” 

“More than anything. I know.” Delaryn whispered with a sated smile as her hand snaked between them and Maiev lifted her hips to allow her more room. “And that’s how much I love you.” 

After a time, they just lay in each other’s arms, content to enjoy the exhausted silence they were sharing. Silence that was broken only by the occasional, barely audible sound of rustling sheets when Maiev would run her fingertips down Delaryn’s side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The Banshee is back from the mines.”

Kargath slowly turned his attention to the guard that had stepped into his rooms, his entire demeanor changing in response to the revelation. “What do you mean _back_ from the mines?”

The orc shuffled uncomfortably for a moment and grunted as he tried to find the words. Words that might not make the situation worse. “It wasn’t...bothering her. And it damn sure wasn’t going to kill her.” 

Kargath stood and approached the orc, his eyes narrowed and his expression causing the guard to take a step back - one that Kargath only bridged immediately. “Put her in the arena with the essedarius tomorrow. Unarmed. Let’s see her survive that.” 

“I...I don’t know how the crowd would respond to that.” 

“You dare question me, peon?” Kargath demanded as he bared his teeth. “All they care for is a show. Put a chariot in the arena and they will concern themselves with little else.” 

The orc bowed his head and began retreating from the room. “Of course. Apologies.” 

Kargath grunted and returned to his seat, his eyes focused on nothing in particular. The Banshee had been a problem from the very first day. You couldn’t whip her. You couldn’t threaten her. She was like a shell. A shell made of armor and apathy that was utterly impenetrable. It was hard to make a gladiator out of someone with nothing to live for. 

He would just make her a corpse, then. An unmoving one, instead of the monstrosity that she was, now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What is that?” Delaryn asked in a sleepy whisper as her eyes opened and she looked around in confusion. It was dark, suddenly. Too dark, even for the night. It seemed even the moon’s light didn’t reach them.

Maiev stirred and pulled Delaryn against her more tightly to try and soothe her from whatever nightmare she assumed she'd had. Until she, too, felt the sudden shift in the air around them and her eyes snapped open. 

She scrambled from the bed as the sound of chains caught her ears from the hallway - and made her way to the door. It was even darker out there. The lamps that usually lit the corridor were inexplicably extinguishing themselves as the strange blackness began to draw closer. 

Confusion turned to worry instantly when two red pinpoints of light cut through the haze she was trying to see through and drew closer, along with the sounds of the steel that bound her. The guards holding her arms looked nervous, and rightfully so. Sylvanas rarely allowed herself to be led anywhere. Maiev knew that better than almost anyone. 

As the nervous guards and their charge passed her door, Sylvanas suddenly turned her attention to Maiev - and the corners of her lips turned into a smile that made Maiev more than a little uneasy. 

“What is it?” Delaryn asked from the bed as she moved to sit on the edge of it, her brows knitted together and her ears lifting as she tried to hear what was going on. 

Maiev didn’t answer until they were gone and she could turn to look at Delaryn who had, by now, stood to come to her. To bring her back to the warmth of her bed where she was already sorely missed. 

“Windrunner.” 

Delaryn reached for Maiev’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before pulling her along while she processed that simple response and what it meant. 

“They had to have known the mines wouldn’t do it.” Delaryn finally responded once they were twined comfortably back together beneath their blanket. 

“They’ll keep trying until they find something that does. She can’t be controlled and they have no use for her.” 

Delaryn pressed her face against Maiev’s arm, then. “Or perhaps she’ll stop playing prisoner and make them suffer.”

Maiev froze. Her blood chilled in her veins. “Delaryn, don’t say such things. Please, don’t.” 

“Okay, okay.” Delaryn sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Del. Just be safe. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t. I can’t lose you either. We can’t lose each other.” 

Maiev relaxed slightly, then, and pulled the blanket around them more tightly. 

“I suppose we have a deal then.”


	7. No Rest For The Wicked

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

The arena was full to capacity. The roar was deafening. 

The Banshee had returned. They had seen her do many things - the free citizens that attended had come to see her do more.

What they had not come to see, however, was an armored, yet unarmed woman pushed out into the sand. She’d been returned to her former gladiatorial splendor. All black leather armor with a shock of purple lining her single-shoulder cape. She’d been a showpiece for quite some time and that armor really only fit her the way it did. No use in letting it go to waste, even if this was meant to be nothing more than an execution of sorts. 

The roar died down immediately. It wasn’t long, as Sylvanas stood there trying to keep the smirk from her face before it shifted into booing. 

“You would have me arm a traitor?” Kargath demanded from the riser he was standing on as he turned to face the crowd. “You will still have your show!” 

It was at that moment the far doors were nearly ripped off their hinges by the surging entrance of an essedarius on his chariot. Only when he’d made his lap around the arena and draw his horses to a dusty halt did Sylvanas finally turn to look at him. A human. A confident one. 

Kargath gave the signal and, in a grand display of power, the charioteer tugged on his reigns in such a fashion that the horses reared up before charging forward. Sylvanas didn’t take a single step. She just tilted her head faintly and...smiled. Smiled in such a way that the excited cheering that had returned faltered.

The man wasn’t more than a few yards away when Sylvanas lifted her hands slowly away from her sides. Only a flash of confusion had time to cross the human man’s face before his horses foundered suddenly. Violently. They were still before they’d even fully made contact with the ground. Yet, they didn’t stop sliding forward and dragging their chariot forward until they were but a few paces in front of the woman who had stolen their lives effortlessly. 

The human stared at her - fear registering on his face now that he realized this might not go the way he assumed it would. He half-stumbled backward off the chariot and dropped his spear now that he was far too close for it to be truly effective. Just as quickly, he unsheathed his sword. 

“Were these yours?” Sylvanas asked in a strangely calm voice. What was even stranger was that somehow, everyone in the arena heard her even over the noise. Even despite the fact that she hadn’t seemed to speak all that loudly. 

The man bared his teeth at her but was in no mood to fall into whatever game she seemed to be playing. He hadn’t been prepared for this. This was supposed to have been an easy win. 

Sylvanas chuckled rather darkly and, with a second - much fainter lift of her hands, what now remained of the horses began scrambling up from the sand. All bone and rot and rage and sounds that made them almost as terrifying as she currently was. “I’m afraid they’re mine, now.” 

She’d whispered that...and still, they’d heard her. 

Sylvanas approached him slowly, running her fingertips along the ridges of one of the risen horses’ spine. “I think I’ll keep them.” 

The gladiator who had been sent to face her continued backing up even as Sylvanas collected his spear out of his chariot. “Unfortunate that our esteemed lanista has...misjudged this situation so terribly.” She spun the spear around in her hand effortlessly as she turned to look around the arena at the gathered crowd. 

“What say you all, then?” She demanded as she grinned wide enough for her fangs to glint in the blinding sunlight that pounded down against them. “Shall I show him mercy?” 

Yet she didn’t give them time to respond. She’d scarcely turned around when the spear was whistling through the air and, subsequently, through the center of her opponent’s chest. It hit him so squarely and with such force that it propped him up as he bled out. It was quite the show. Especially when, with a simple gesture, Sylvanas’s risen steeds crumbled back into the dust she’d risen them from. 

Only then did she lift her eyes to Kargath as the crowd erupted with more vigor than the orc had ever heard. And, so, what could he do but lift his thumb into the air? What could he do but submit to the crowd’s whims? It never hurt anyone to have two champions. Especially when one of them was a little more...destructible than the other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I knew this was coming.” Liadrin murmured quietly as she placed her empty water cup back down against the top of the table they were seated at. It was dark. Almost impossibly so. It almost made Sylvanas look that much more sinister as she regarded her. 

“As did I.” Maiev husked lowly from the end of the bench. “You have but a moment, Windrunner. Before we need to go. I won’t be beaten again. Not now. Not for anyone. Not even you.” 

“For Delaryn, then?” Sylvanas asked with a slight narrow of her eyes. “Hm? Are you so comfortable now, Doctore, that you’ve forgotten who gave her to you? Who would take her away again without so much as a thought?”

“Sylvanas…” Liadrin admonished as she reached out and held Maiev’s shoulder tightly when the Night Elf began to stand - the agitation palpable in every breath she took, now. 

“Mmh. And you, _Matriarch._ ” Sylvanas continued as she adjusted her attention to Liadrin. “That new...companion of yours? Lovely. Beautiful, really. She doesn’t belong in the arena. Have you told her as much?” The Banshee Queen smiled almost sweetly, then. “What am I saying? Of course, you have. I’d have thought you would both have reconsidered my offer by now. In fact, with your newfound motivation, Liadrin - I assumed you would be particularly apt to change your mind.” 

“Motivation?” Maiev asked - a certain dangerous edge to her voice. “Submission is the only safety. The only way to keep them safe.” 

“For how long, Maiev?” Sylvanas asked as her eyes cut in the older woman’s direction - burning bright and red in the darkness. “For how long? And you...their pet. A pet with a pet, how quaint.” Sylvanas leaned back slightly and regarded Liadrin for a moment before she continued. “I expected a reaction, forgive me for the pause. They really have clipped your wings, haven’t they? Both of you. I’m only here because I want to be. Perhaps we should begin by establishing that. Perhaps if I’d let you in on that little tidbit the first time around, I wouldn’t have had to pretend to suffer in the mines. My mistake, really.” 

Maiev’s brow furrowed and she leaned forward slightly. “What is that supposed to mean, exactly?” She asked - her voice so quiet, now, that it was barely audible. Liadrin, while silent, was just as intrigued. 

“I eluded capture for years. Do you really believe they suddenly grew smart enough to not only find me but bring me here against my will? And where are my Rangers, hm? Do you think them all slaughtered? I would surely perish, myself, before I would allow them all to be killed.” 

That gave them both pause. Enough so that Sylvanas went on. 

“Now, I suspect we don’t have all that much time on our hands. I could leave whenever I wish to, but I won’t. I won’t leave until you are both ready to do what needs to be done to end this madness. You give me the word tonight, and we’ll move forward. Or you take your time...see how long they allow you the paltry semblance of happiness you’ve allowed yourself to settle for.”

Liadrin lowered her eyes. For a moment, she was lost in her thoughts. Or, specifically, the thought of Valeera and how she’d looked when she left her sleeping just a short while ago. How soft she was. How perfect. 

“We’ll have your answer in two days’ time.” Liadrin finally whispered. 

“We will?” Maiev asked with a lift of her brow. 

“Yes. We will. Valeera deserves to know. So does Delaryn. That’s enough time for us to have conversations that desperately need to be had.” 

Sylvanas nodded and stood slowly. “Very well, then.”

“And the rest of the plan?” Liadrin asked quickly before Sylvanas could disappear, as she was wont to do. 

“The same. Only with that new partner of yours...you could always make the show a little flashier. Give me a little more time to work my magic.” 

Liadrin swallowed thickly and nodded.

She couldn’t get back to their rooms fast enough. She couldn’t get back to Valeera fast enough. When she arrived, the younger woman’s eyelids fluttered faintly and she reached for her while she crawled back into bed, still as clothed as she’d been upon leaving. “Where did you go?” Valeera asked in a whisper. 

Liadrin took a deep breath and shook her head as she pulled Valeera into her arms so tightly the younger woman woke rather quickly in alarm. “Liadrin.” Her voice was sharper now as she forced her eyes to focus and reached to stroke over her face. “Liadrin, where did you go?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“To see Sylvanas.” Maiev said as she sat down at their table. A table Delaryn had been sitting at through the entire length of her absence. 

Delaryn leveled her gaze at her and reached out to cover her scarred hand with her own where it rested atop the table. “And what did she have to say?” Delaryn asked - her voice even. Steady. 

“The same. The same things as before.” Maiev breathed as she lowered her head and pressed her face against her free hand against the pounding in her head. 

“Shh, Maiev…” Delaryn stood and move towards her quickly, pulling her against her chest and burying her face against her hair. “What did you say to her this time?” She asked into the grey and white strands as she lifted a hand to stroke through them. 

“I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. Liadrin told her we would meet with her again in two days. That we would have our answer.” 

“And will you?” Delaryn asked as she leaned back enough to look at Maiev. Enough to trace her thumb across her brow and the various scars that cross-crossed her skin. 

“What about you?” Maiev asked with a furrow between her brows. “What about you, Del? You’re no fighter. Not like them.” 

“Give me a bow and I’ll put an arrow between each of their eyes, Maiev. You forget I haven’t always been a slave. I was a sentinal once upon a time. Just as you were a warden.” 

Maiev let out a trembling breath and finally nodded her assent. “All right. Just...please, Del. Please keep your head down until...until whatever happens happens.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Do you think she can do it?” Valeera asked quietly against Liadrin’s temple after she slid the other woman’s shirt over her head. 

“I know she can.” Liadrin breathed as Valeera traced her lips down the side of her neck. “That’s why I’m so scared.” 

“You aren’t scared for yourself, Liadrin.” Valeera murmured, pulling Liadrin into her lap and drawing patterns along her sides in an attempt to soothe her. “You’re scared for me and I don’t want you to be. I don’t need you to be. I just need us to get out of here, Liadrin. And I need you to keep wanting me when we do.” 

“I will. I can swear that with absolutely no uncertainty.” 

“Good. There’s nothing we can do about any of this tonight. Put me back to sleep, Liadrin.” Valeera’s voice was scarcely a murmur as she began undoing the ties that held Liadrin’s pants around her slender waist.

Liadrin still found it terribly easy to be distracted by Valeera’s touches. By how velvety her voice could be when she wanted it to be. She found it even easier to press her onto her back against the bed and deliver a sharp, lingering bite against her jaw. 

“That’s new.” Valeera whispered breathlessly as she wrapped her legs around Liadrin’s waist tightly. 

“I can stop.” Liadrin offered against the faint mark she’d left. 

“No.” Valeera gasped out as Liadrin panted quietly against her shoulder. “Wear me out. I’m done thinking tonight. I’m done. And I’m tired. Just not tired enough. Please.” 

It didn’t take much, really. It wasn’t long at all before they were laying against each other - both their chests rising and falling rapidly as Valeera tangled one of her legs with Liadrin’s beneath their blanket.

The quiet ‘thank you’ that Valeera murmured against the damp skin of Liadrin’s shoulder was met with an unintelligible murmur of appreciation in return just before they both lost their tenuous grasp on consciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Go to sleep, Banshee.” The orc patrolling for the night said in a gruff tone as he walked past Sylvanas’s barred door for what had to be the dozenth time. 

“I don’t sleep.” Sylvanas responded with a smirk. 

The orc grunted in irritation. “I don’t care what you do. Just stop looking at me.” 

His steady, plodding steps stuttered to a stop when she laughed. Because the laugh hadn’t come from her cell. It seemed to have come from all around him - echoing up and down the halls and in the depths of his very mind. 

_Don’t tell me what to do, orc._

“Who said that?!” He demanded as he pulled his axe from where he’d been holding it on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, did you want me to go to sleep or did you want me to answer your questions?” Sylvanas asked from her room with a tilt of her head. This time, she spoke out loud. This time, he had somewhere to focus his anger. 

The bars rattled violently under the force of his fists making contact with them after he crossed the hallway quickly. “Don’t play games with me, _witch_.”

“Witch?” Sylvanas asked with a slight pout that quickly turned into that same smirk she’d been wearing earlier. 

_“Your ignorance is breathtaking.”_

Luckily, she didn’t need air to speak into his mind. She found his hand wrapped around her throat even as her voice still echoed in his skull. 

_”Let go and I’ll let you live.”_

“I should snap your neck where you stand.” He spat with so much venom Sylvanas felt spittle against her face. 

_”I’ll rephrase that for you. You will let me go. Now.”_

An almost glazed look bled into the orc’s eyes as his hold loosened and then his hand dropped to his side, his whole arm swinging from the hinge of his shoulder. 

_”Very good. Now hand me the keys.”_

Wordlessly, he unbuckled them from his belt and passed them through the bars of her door. Sylvanas took them from him silently and backed towards the darkness of her room until she disappeared into it entirely. 

_”Now forget.”_

He looked confused to be standing there when his eyes sharpened again. But he was none the wiser. He simply grunted and moved back to the path he stayed on for his rounds, shuffling away as he muttered to himself. 

Sylvanas just lounged on her cot, chuckling to herself as she spun the keys between her fingers. 

It was good to be back.


	8. A Choice

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161614435@N03/47940023293/in/dateposted-public/)

Liadrin’s brow was furrowed as she stared ahead, sweat already beading across her brow and her heart pounding in her chest. 

“Why are they doing this?” Valeera asked quietly, trying and failing to hide the tremor in her voice. She knew Liadrin could feel her shaking. How could she not? Their wrists had been tied together for the better part of the afternoon. 

“I don’t know.” Liadrin admitted - stroking slowly and idly along Valeera’s thigh, which was all she could reach in their current predicament. “But I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

Perhaps Liadrin knew why. Perhaps she knew they knew what Sylvanas was up to by now. But there was no use in scaring Valeera. She was terrified as it was. 

Liadrin was armed with nothing but a shield. Valeera had only one short sword. They hadn’t practiced this. Not at all. Maiev’s protests had fallen on deaf ears. 

They were all a liability, now...all of them. Liadrin was expendable, on top of it. Sylvanas had quickly risen once again to be the crowd favorite, and, in their ignorance, their captors believed themselves able to control her. 

“Don’t do anything stupid for me, Liadrin.” Valeera pleaded as she leaned forward in an attempt to counter the ache that had settled in the pit of her stomach. 

“I don’t do stupid things.” Liadrin replied. “I just need you to listen to me closely out there.”

Valeera nodded. Not a moment later, the bars across their holding cell lifted to a deafening roar of excitement from the gathered crowd. 

“Let’s go. Don’t drag your feet. Steel yourself.” 

Valeera swallowed thickly past the lump of nerves in her throat as she picked up her sword and walked with Liadrin out into the arena. 

“Do you feel that?” Liadrin asked as she twisted her wrist just so - indicating that she meant to turn - to survey what was around them.

“Yes.”

She repeated the action in the opposite direction. 

“That?”

“Yes.” 

Liadrin nodded and clenched her jaw. “Alright.” 

When the first gate lifted to reveal an unusually large dire wolf, Liadrin could have sank to the ground in relief. Until the next gate opened...and the next...and the next. 

The terrible beasts loomed in a way that unsettled Liadrin. Like they were waiting for something. The elekk trumpeted its fury. The rylak made terrible screeching sounds that threatened to disorient them altogether. 

When the last gate lifted, Liadrin realized what...or who they had been waiting for. 

“Our guest sponsored by the generous Thunderlord for today’s festivities!” Kargath announced with a sneer. “The Beastlord! Undefeated in his own arena! Darmac!” 

“Come!” The orc shouted as he took a single step towards them. “Your meat and bones will feed my animals!” 

It became clear rather quickly that this wasn’t meant to be a match so much as it was meant to be a bloodbath. 

Liadrin turned her head sharply as she felt a tug at her wrist and saw Valeera attempting to back away. But it was too late for that, now. 

That became apparent all too quickly - as Liadrin turned back just in time to deflect a spear with her shield that had been hurled with such force she stumbled backwards over Valeera once it struck and glanced away from them. 

Something about that moment spurred Valeera into action. Hearing the grunt of pain from Liadrin...seeing her scramble back to her feet with herself between her and their many enemies. 

She buried her sword tip in the round and reached for the spear that had landed nearby, testing the weight of it in her hand as Liadrin’s feet shifted through the sand carefully while she watched every move their foes made in their direction. 

Valeera loosed the spear with surprising accuracy. She’d gone for the wolf, and his cry let them all know she had hit her mark. 

She had only just managed to retrieve her sword when the orc bellowed his rage and sent his other beasts charging at them. 

The moments following were a blur. More than once, she found herself pressed to the ground beneath Liadrin and her shield. More than once, she was certain her arm had been pulled out of socket when she was tugged out of the way of a blow she could never have seen coming from the dangers that now surrounded them completely. 

They tried to focus their attacks. Somehow - they even managed to position themselves in a way that Valeera delivered a devastating blow to Darmac in hopes that, without their master, the remaining two beasts might lose their focus and provide them an opening. 

His dying shouts only further enraged them. It was too much to counter. Especially since they couldn’t part from each other. The two heads of the rylak snapped at their legs - coming dangerously close each and every time - making their movements predictable with his attacks. 

That’s why Liadrin hadn’t properly braced herself for the elekk’s charge. That’s why they both found themselves sliding through the sand to a painful, breathless stop as Liadrin coughed and sputtered in an attempt to pull some of the wind she’d lost from her lungs back into them. 

Liadrin could feel the thundering of hooves and the beating of wings draw nearer as her head fell to the side and she found Valeera laying unconscious beside her. It was all she could do to grit her teeth and sling the smaller woman over herself and to the other side by the rope that bound their wrists. 

There simply wasn’t enough time for her to move herself, as well. Before the elekk’s charge could reach them, she found her face and her chest wrapped in the rylak’s vicious talons. She let out a bloodcurdling scream. 

One that was loud enough to cause Valeera to stir just before the powerful wing stokes of the creature began to lift first Liadrin, and then her, from the ground. 

She had never heard anything like that scream. Or, at least, a single sound had never cut into her so deeply. So fiercely. 

Rage boiled through her veins and drove her into desperation as her weight hanging from Liadrin’s arm only caused the beast’s claws to dig more deeply into their prize. 

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, more to herself than to Liadrin, before she swung herself up - earning another quieter, weaker shout from Liadrin in response to the sudden jerk against her nearly ruined body - and buried her sword in the creature’s chest so deeply he fell from the sky before he knew what had happened. And they fell beneath him, draped by his massive body. 

Valeera could hear Liadrin struggling to breathe. She could hear the first sob that tore from the woman’s throat. 

Where she got the strength, she might never know - but she found it. She found it, and she pushed the dying creature off of them. 

The sight of Liadrin nearly broke her where the rylak had failed to. She ignored the looming presence of the elekk on the other side of the arena as she straddled Liadrin’s hips and reached, with shaking hands for her face - for the bloodied pit that had once been her left eye - for the deep gouges in her sides. 

Her attention shifted, then, to Kargath above them. Her rage burned, unbridled in her eyes. 

“Get up.” She breathed urgently as she finally tore her eyes from his sneering face to look back down at Liadrin. “Please. Please get up.” 

She heard the elekk notice them. She _felt_ the first thundering steps it took in her direction. 

Liadrin managed a shuddering, pained gasp as she forced her eye open murmured something Valeera couldn’t make out. 

“I can’t hear you.” She whimpered, her hand trembling as she tried to wipe some of the blood from Liadrin’s face. “Liadrin, I can’t…” 

Then, in an instant - they were surrounded by warmth. By Light. The elekk crashed against the brilliance of the shield as the glow of Liadrin’s eye brightened. It was like looking into the sun as Valeera trembled against her. In a crackle of magic, the shield dispersed - its energy directed solely into the creature that was still recovering from the initial impact. 

He fell. 

There was stunned silence in the crowd. 

“Apprehend the Shadow!” Kargath suddenly shouted as he scrambled to recover from the shock. 

“No.” Liadrin rasped, panic replacing the all-consuming pain that wracked her body. “No! It wasn’t her!” 

And Kargath knew that. Of course, he knew that. 

Valeera leaned over her as the guards began their approach, shushing her desperately as she did. “Let them think what they will.” She breathed urgently. 

“Take her to the pits!” 

Liadrin tried to push herself from the dust and grime she was pinned against, but Valeera wouldn’t let her. “I’ll be fine.” 

Liadrin choked out a sob as she shook her head despite the frantic pounding in it. “No. Please. Valeera, please…” 

The rope binding them together was cut and Valeera was tugged to her feet by her arms. They didn’t even allow her to walk. They dragged her from the arena as Liadrin fought to maintain consciousness...and failed. 

The next time she was aware of anything, it was Maiev placing her in her bed. 

“Heal yourself.” Maiev said - an edge of darkness to her voice that Liadrin had never heard before.

“You know that I…” 

The look of warning Maiev cast in her direction as she moved to leave left little room for argument. “We’re out of time, Liadrin.” 

With that, she was gone. 

The Doctore couldn’t have made it back to her rooms any more quickly than she had if she tried. Immediately, she went for the weapons rack against one of the barren walls as she spoke. “Del, we have to go.” 

Her ears swiveled in response to a quiet noise from the other room and her hands froze. “Del…? Del, I know you haven’t slept well, but…” 

Maiev froze in the doorway to their simple bedchamber and stared down at the barely conscious woman huddled on the floor. 

“Delaryn?” 

She dropped the sword belt she’d been holding when all she got in response was a weak, barely audible gasp. Soon thereafter, she was on her knees tugging Delaryn into her arms. She was so cold. Fuck, she was so cold. With wild eyes, she lifted her and looked around the room. There was nothing. Nothing out of place. Just a glass on the floor near where she’d been laying. 

The floor where the liquid it had contained was discolored. Her eyes were still sharp enough to note that detail. That terrible, chilling detail. 

“Hold on.” Maiev husked urgently, gathering Delaryn more tightly against her chest as her body seized when she turned to carry her from the room. “Hold on for me for just a while longer.” 

Despite the danger of it all - despite the eyes that Maiev had no doubt were watching her - she made her way to the cells belonging to the gladiators. She made her way to Sylvanas. At least it was dark. At least no one had followed her. She could feel the weakness of Delaryn’s breaths as she held her, now, and they grew weaker and shallower with nearly every step she took. 

“I warned you, Shadowsong.” 

Maiev had to bite back the growl that threatened to escape her throat as she looked through the bars of Sylvanas’s door at the red glow of her eyes. “Help her.” 

It was a demand. An order. It was desperate. 

“Is she dead?” Sylvanas asked almost callously as she stood, finally, and made her way to the door. 

“No!” Maiev hissed sharply. “Help her! I know you know how to counter poisons!” 

“I’m afraid I can’t counter anything in my current predicament.” Sylvanas cast a single glance at the dying woman in Maiev’s arms and then took a step back. “Leave her here.” She finally said, though Maiev initially balked at the idea, taking a backwards step of her own to get further away from those eyes. From the coldness of that voice. 

“Stupid elf.” Sylvanas growled at her from the shadows. “You have your own inaction to thank for this. You know that much is true. I warned the Matriarch, too. Are you ready to listen? _Now_ are you finally ready to listen?” 

“Please.” Maiev whispered, her eyes burning as Delaryn whimpered against her chest...and then went utterly still. “No...no, no, no...no, please.” 

“Put her down.” Sylvanas said as she reached through the bars of her cell to unlock it with the keys she kept tucked into her clothing. When Maiev hesitated, Sylvanas clenched her jaw as her ears sank low. “The longer you try to hold onto her, the worse it will be for her when I bring her back.” 

Maiev’s head jerked in Sylvanas’s direction and she bared her fangs at her in a snarl that caused Sylvanas to smirk. “Save that. Save that for the orcs. Save that for Kargath. We need her, Maiev. I need her alive. Because I need _you_. This isn’t a kindness. It’s a necessity. You’ll go mad without her. Look at you. Put. Her. Down.” 

Maiev was shaking terribly as she relented. Selfishly. This was selfish. So terribly selfish. But Sylvanas was right. She was already cracking. Already getting lost in the desperation and anguish that was swirling around her - waiting to overtake her. 

“You know why you really came here.” Sylvanas murmured - softening somewhat as Maiev ran the lengths of her fingers through the dark strands of Delaryn’s hair. “You knew the moment you made this decision that this was what you wanted. Would it help you to know that she doesn’t have to return if she doesn’t wish to? Would it help you to know that she has a choice?” 

“Are you lying?” Maiev demanded with all the strength she could force into her quaking voice. 

“Not about this.” Sylvanas replied simply. 

Maiev spent another precious few moments stroking through Delaryn’s hair as bitter tears streamed down her face. There was no use trying to hold them back any longer. “She is going to despise me for this.” Maiev breathed as Sylvanas finally began to approach. 

“I imagine that’s true enough. I imagine that someday she will be angry and have nowhere to place that blame. That might be a very difficult day for the two of you. But a day is just a day, and we have more important things to deal with that will otherwise occupy the both of you for now.”

Maiev hated how it felt to watch Sylvanas lift Delaryn into her arms. She hated how powerless she was as the banshee disappeared into her room with her. Nothing was worse, however, than the next few moments she spent pacing the dark, dusty hallway outside. Nothing was worse than the not knowing. 

Just before she could begin tearing her hair out, however, a strange feeling washed over her. Not entirely dark. Certainly not light… This was a magic that just...was. It was gone as soon as it had come. She stopped her pacing and turned around just in time to see Sylvanas moving towards the door and leaving the room, entirely. 

“Be ready, Shadowsong.” Her parting words were simple...yet foreboding. They sent a chill down her spine that only threatened to further overwhelm her already frayed nerves. Until…

“Maiev?” 

Her knees nearly gave out. “Del?” She sounded frantic because she absolutely was as she scrambled into the room towards the cot where Sylvanas had left her lover. 

“She...she told me you would have a choice. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Del. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do this without you. Please...I...I-“

“I would never choose to not be with you, Maiev.” There was a strange, hollow echo to her voice. Maiev didn’t care. She had never cared about anything less, really. 

“But you did have a choice?” 

Delaryn nodded, albeit weakly. “And I’d make it again. I’d make it a thousand times. But this is a conversation for another night, most likely. I’m sure they meant to come for you, next. They’ll come for us all.” 

“I know…”

“That was her plan, you know.” Delaryn continued, much to Maiev’s surprise...and anger. Anger that Delaryn soothed with a cool hand against the side of her face. 

“She didn’t do this, Maiev. They did. And now, when they do come for us all, we’ll be more than ready.” 

When Delaryn began to stand, Maiev moved quickly to help her, only to find her more than steady enough on her own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How?” Kargath demanded as he slammed his fist down into the surface of the table he was seated at so violently it splintered beneath the force. “How did you let her _escape_?” 

“I...I don’t know.” The guard admitted as he wrung his hands nervously and winced at whatever Kargath’s response would have been had it not turned into a roar of utter disbelief. 

“I want them all in the arena _tomorrow_. Every last one of them. Even the wench from the pits. Fetch her, too. I grow tired of playing their games. It’s time we put an end to this.” 

The guard swallowed and nodded before clearing his throat so he could form an actual response. “Of course. Right away. The Champion, though...she’s barely alive, as it is.” 

“Does it look like I care?!” The guard winced as spittle sprayed against his face and the hand that had suddenly come to grip his throat tightened dangerously. “They die tomorrow. All of them. Every single elf in this ludus. Is that understood? Have I put it plainly enough for you, this time?” 

The guard tried to answer, but the grip had become too tight. He simply gurgled uselessly as he attempted to nod. By the time Kargath let him go, he spent the next few moments struggling to stand from where he’d fallen to his knees as Kargath simply returned to his dinner. 

“And...what of the Banshee, sir?” He finally asked after he’d moved as far away as he possibly could without leaving the room, entirely. 

“We still need a Champion, after all.” Kargath responded simply. “We will find her, again. And this time - we _will_ break her.”


End file.
